Kindness is the beginning of cruelty.

Meaning of the quote

This quote means that sometimes being too kind to someone can actually lead to them being cruel or mean to you in the future. It's important to find a balance between being kind and standing up for yourself, so that others don't take advantage of your kindness. Being overly kind can sometimes encourage bad behavior in others.

About Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert was an acclaimed American science-fiction author, best known for his iconic novel Dune and its celebrated sequels. The Dune series explores complex themes like human evolution, planetary ecology, and the intersection of religion, politics, and power in a future with interstellar travel.

More about the author

More quotes from Frank Herbert

Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

To suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror, to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

Kindness is the beginning of cruelty.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

What do you despise? By this are you truly known.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

Enemies make you stronger, allies make you weaker.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

The stakes in conflict do not change. Battle determines who will control the wealth or its equivalent.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us?

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

Wealth is a tool of freedom, but the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

Truth suffers from too much analysis.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

It is a wise man that does know the contented man is never poor, whilst the discontented man is never rich.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

Something cannot emerge from nothing.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

The difference between sentiment and being sentimental is the following: Sentiment is when a driver swerves out of the way to avoid hitting a rabbit on the road. Being sentimental is when the same driver, when swerving away from the rabbit, hits a pedestrian.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test it’s a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

There is no escape – we pay for the violence of our ancestors.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

One of the best things to come out of the home computer revolution could be the general and widespread understanding of how severely limited logic really is.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

To attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing the Darkness. It cannot be.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)

Religion often partakes of the myth of progress that shields us from the terrors of an uncertain future.

Frank Herbert

American writer (1920-1986)