Governments do not know what they cannot do until after they cease to be governments. Each government carries the seeds of its own destruction.

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.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. It's execution that counts.

To come under siege was the inevitable fate of power.

He who controls the spice controls the universe.

Justice belongs to those who claim it, but let the claimant beware lest he create new injustice by his claim and thus set the bloody pendulum of revenge into its inexorable motion

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now it's complete because it's ended here."