Frank Herbert Quotes

Study history. Study history. In history lie all the secrets of statecraft.

Well, I think, by definition, all power has limits.

The true policy of government is to make use of aristocracy, but under the forms and in the spirit of democracy.

As I see it, only God can be all-powerful without danger, because his wisdom and justice are always equal to his power. Thus there is no authority on earth so inherently worthy of respect, or invested with a right so sacred, that I would want to let it act without oversight or rule without impediment (p. 290).

Always we must bear in mind that law has to be substituted for power, that care must be taken to serve the interests of law.

It is with government as with medicine, its only business is the choice of evils. Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty.

It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.

Beauty is the greatest of human powers. Any power without counterbalance or control becomes autocratic and leads to abuse and to folly. Despotism in a government is insanity; in woman, fantasy.

You can have a strong government and a weak people, or strong people and weak government, but you cannot have both.

The government understands - every government, every administration, both parties, understands - that that power, they just don't have.

The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of Government. But what is Government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

It is a melancholy reflection that liberty should be equally exposed to danger whether the government have too much power or too little power and that the line which divides these extremes should be so inaccurately defined by experience.

The government has to be on the side of the people if the corporations take too much power.

There can never be a complete confidence in a power which is excessive.

Although military, economic and political strength certainly favors the more powerful side, the matter of simple justice is a counterbalancing factor.

There are people working their butts off trying to save our republic and save democracy from the likes of powerful people in the Democrat Party who want to take this country and turn it into a personal little playground for their own private gain.

We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

The liquor of statecraft is distilled from the mash you got.

When power is for sale, then government power should be severely limited. When power is abused, then the less power the better.

[I]n the next place, to show that unless these departments be so far connected and blended as to give to each a constitutional control over the others, the degree of separation which the maxim requires, as essential to a free government, can never in practice be duly maintained.

As freedom is the only safeguard of governments, so are order and moderation generally necessary to preserve freedom.

Elections determine who is in power, but they do not determine how power is used.

Governing a large country is like frying a small fish. You spoil it with too much poking. Center your country in the Tao and evil will have no power. Not that it isn't there, but you'll be able to step out of its way. Give evil nothing to oppose and it will disappear by itself.

We really must keep under control, and pretty strict control, the area within which 'The Man in Whitehall' knows best.

To make Democracy work, you need an aristocratic democracy. To make Aristocracy work, you need a democratic aristocracy.