13 Quotes by Frank Herbert about government




  • Author Frank Herbert
  • Quote

    Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class - whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.- Politics as Repeat Phenomenon: Bene Gesserit Training Manual

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  • Author Frank Herbert
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    Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague ritual. -Words of Muad'dib by Princess Irulan.

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  • Author Frank Herbert
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    The pattern is inexorable in its degenerative failures. You see it repeated in the systems of slavery, of welfare states, of caste-ridden religions, of socializing bureaucracies--in any system which creates and maintains dependencies. Too long a parasite and you cannot exist without a host.

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  • Author Frank Herbert
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    Good governance never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders.

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  • Author Frank Herbert
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    Governments can be useful to the governed only so long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained...be exceedingly careful about the powers you delegate to any government.

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