All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted.
Frank HerbertYou see, gentlemen, they have something to die for. They've discovered they're a people. They're awakening.
Frank HerbertThe person who takes the banal and ordinary and illuminates it in a new way can terrify. We do not want our ideas changed.
Frank HerbertRiots and comedy are but symptoms of the times, profoundly revealing. They betray the psychological tone, the deep uncertainties....and the striving for something better, plus the fear that nothing would come of it all.
Frank HerbertHistorians exercise great power and some of them know it. They recreate the past, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the future as well.
Frank HerbertNo matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life and society nor the complexity of the machine/human interface, there always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, the very future of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individual.
Frank Herbert