The gravest error a thinking person can make is to believe that one particular version of history is absolute fact. History is recorded by a series of observers, none of whom is impartial. The facts are distorted by sheer passage of time and thousands of years of humanity's dark ages, deliberate misrepresentations by religious sects, and the inevitable corruption that comes from an accumulation of careless mistakes. The wise person, then, views history as a set of lessons to be learned, choices and ramifications to be considered and discussed, and mistakes that should never again be made.

The person who takes the banal and ordinary and illuminates it in a new way can terrify. We do not want our ideas changed.

It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.

Every civilization must contend with an unconscious force which can block, betray, or countermand almost any conscious intention of the collectivity.

What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.

The scarce water of Dune is an exact analog of oil scarcity. CHOAM is OPEC.

In my estimation, more misery has been created by reformers than by any other force in human history.