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

Clinging to any form of conservatism can be dangerous. Become too conservative and you are unprepared for surprises. You cannot depend on luck. Logic is blind and often knows only its own past. Logic is good for playing chess but is often too slow for the needs of survival.

We tend to become like the worst in those we oppose.

Never attempt to reason with people who know they are right!

Most lives are a flight from selfhood. Most prefer the truths of the stable. You stick your head into the stanchions and munch contentedly until you die. Others use you for their purposes. Not once do you look outside the stable to lift your head and be your own creature.

When politics and religion are intermingled, a people is suffused with a sense of invulnerability, and gathering speed in their forward charge, they fail to see the cliff ahead of them

There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man - with human flesh.