Dune

"God created Arrakis to train the faithful."

"You cannot back into the future."

"Then, as his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes that his father and all the other scientists were wrong, that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error."

"May thy knife chip and shatter."

"It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire."

"Things persisted in not being what they seemed."

"We are generalists. You can't draw neat lines around planet-wide problems. Planetology is a cut-and-fit science."

"No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero."

"The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen" — which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing."

"My mother obeyed her Sister Superiors where the Lady Jessica disobeyed. Which of them was the stronger? History already has answered."

"The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future."

"Anger is one thing, violence another."

"To accept a little death is worse than death itself."

"She focused on the psychokinesthetic extension of herself, looking within, and was confronted immediately with a cellular core, a pit of blackness from which she recoiled. That is the place where we cannot look, she thought. There is the place the Reverend Mothers are so reluctant to mention — the place where only a Kwisatz Haderach may look."

"The mind can go either direction under stress — toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training."

"The highest function of ecology is understanding consequences."

"Science is made up of so many things that appear obvious after they are explained."

"You cannot go on forever stealing what you need without regard for those who come after. The physical qualities of a planet are written into its economic and political record. We have the record in front of us and our course is clear."

"Prophecy and prescience — How can they be put to the test in the face of the unanswered questions? Consider: How much is actual prediction of the "wave form" (as Muad'Dib referred to his vision-image) and how much is the prophet shaping the future to fit the prophecy? What of the harmonics inherent in the act of prophecy? Does the prophet see the future or does he see a line of weakness, a fault or cleavage that he may shatter with words or decisions as a diamond-cutter shatters his gem with a blow of a knife?"

"To save one from a mistake is a gift of paradise."

"The vision made him want to freeze into immobility, but this, too, was action with its consequences."

"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?"

""Your mother wanted me to be the one to tell you, Son. You see, you may have Mentat capabilities." Paul stared at his father, unable to speak for a moment, then: "A Mentat? Me? But I…" "Hawat agrees, Son. It's true." "But I thought Mentat training had to start during infancy and the subject couldn't be told because it might inhibit the early…" He broke off, all his past circumstances coming to focus in one flashing computation. "I see," he said."

"All the special training from Hawat and his mother — the mnemonics, the focusing of awareness, the muscle control and sharpening of sensitivities, the study of languages and nuances of voices — all of it clicked into a new kind of understanding in his mind. "You'll be the Duke someday, Son," his father said. "A Mentat Duke would be formidable indeed.""

"A million deaths were not enough for Yueh!"

"Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson."

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

"O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in your prayers."

"Let us not rail about justice as long as we have arms and the freedom to use them."

"I must rule with eye and claw — as the hawk among lesser birds."

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

"He shall know your ways as if born to them."

"Bless the Maker and all His Water. Bless the coming and going of Him, May His passing cleanse the world. May He keep the world for his people."

"When God hath ordained a creature to die in a particular place, He causeth that creature's wants to direct him to that place."

"Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never persistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man."

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

"Is it defeatist or treacherous for a doctor to diagnose a disease correctly? My only intention is to cure the disease."

"Anything outside yourself, this you can see and apply your logic to it. But it's a human trait that when we encounter personal problems, these things most deeply personal are the most difficult to bring out for our logic to scan. We tend to flounder around, blaming everything but the actual, deep-seated thing that's really chewing on us."

"Do you wrestle with dreams? Do you contend with shadows? Do you move in a kind of sleep? Time has slipped away. Your life is stolen. You tarried with trifles. Victim of your folly."

"There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles."

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

"One thought remained to him. Leto saw it in formless light on rays of black: The day the flesh shapes and the flesh the day shapes. The thought struck him with a sense of fullness he knew he could never explain."

"Be prepared to appreciate what you meet."

"My father once told me that respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. "Something cannot emerge from nothing," he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable "the truth" can be."

"Muad'Dib could indeed see the Future, but you must understand the limits of this power. Think of sight. You have eyes, yet cannot see without light. If you are on the floor of a valley, you cannot see beyond your valley. Just so, Muad'Dib could not always choose to look across the mysterious terrain. He tells us that a single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one word over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us "The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door." And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning "That path leads ever down into stagnation.""

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

"There existed no need on Caladan to build a physical paradise or a paradise of the mind — we could see the actuality all around us. And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life — we went soft, we lost our edge."

"A stone is heavy and the sand is weighty; but a fools wrath is heavier than them both."

"Cool your sorrow — we've the diversions for it; three things there are that ease the heart — water, green grass, and the beauty of woman."

"Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic."