“Every judgement teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous.” 

"It was the religion of Muad'Dib that upset Stilgar most. Why did they make a god of Muad'Dib? Why deify a man known to be flesh?

"Too much knowledge never makes for simple decisions"

 "When your actions describe a stystem of evil consequences, you should be judged by those consequences and not by those explanations."

"A sophisicated human can become primitive. What this really means is that the human's way of life changes. Old values change, become linked to the landscape with its plants and animals. This new existence requires a working knowledge of those multiple and cross-linked events usually referred to as nature. It requires  ameasure of respect for the inertial power within such natural systems. When a human gains this working knowledge and respect, that is called 'being primitive'. The converse, of course, is equally true: the primitive can become sophisicated, but not without accepting dreadful psychological damage."

"A large populace held in check by a small but powerful force is quite a common situation in our universe. And we know the conditions wherein this large populace may turn upon its keepers - One: When they find a leader. This is the most volatile threat to the powerful; they must retain control of leaders. Two: When the populace recognizes its chains. Keep the populace blind and unquestioning. Three: When the populace perceives a hope of escape from bondage. They must never even beleive that escape is possible!"

"Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualites 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."

"Each planet has it own period, and each life likewise."

"In all major socializing forces you will find an underlying movement to gain and maintain power through the use of words....A goverened populace must be conditioned to accept word-power as actual things, to confuse the symoblized system with the tangible universe.  In the maintenance of such a power structure, certain symbols are kept out of reach of common understanding."

"A memory was not enough...unless its use was known and its value revealed to judgement."

"The generalist looks outwards; he looks for living principles, knowling full well that such principles change, that they develop. It is to the characteristics of change itself that the generalist must look."

"Irony often masks the inability to think beyond one's assumptions."

"As with all religions, your institution moves toward cowardice, mediocrity, inertia and self satisfaction...Is your religion real when it costs you nothing and carries no risk? Is your religion real when you fatten upon it? Is your religion real when you commit atrocities in its name? Whence comes your downward degeneration from the original revelation?"

"To exist is to stand out, away from the background. You aren't really thinking or really ecisting uneless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence."

"Humans tend to think of everything in a sequential, world-orientated framework. This mental trap produced very short-term concepts of effectiveness and consequences, a condition of constant, unplanned response to crises."

"To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty."

"Every question, every problem, doesn't have a single correct answer. One must permit diversity. A monolith is unstable. Why do you demand a correct statement from me?"

"Peace demands solutions, but we never reach living solutions; we only work toward them. A fixed solution is, by definition, a dead solution. The trouble with peace is that it tends to punish mistakes instead of rewarding brilliance." 

"Men must want to do things out of their own innermost drives. People, not commercial organizations or chains of command, are what make great civilizations work. Every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces. If you over-organize humans, over-legalize them, supress their urge to greatness - they cannot work and their civilization collapses."

"Limits of survival are set by climate, these long drifts of change, which a generation may fail to notice. And it is the extremes of climate which set the pattern. Lonely, finite humans may observe climatic provinces, fluctuations of annual weather and may occasionally observe such things as 'This is a colder year that I've ever known'/ Such things are sensible. But humans are seldom alerted to the shifting average through a great span od years. And it is precisely in this alerting that humans leanr how to survive on any planet. The must learn climate."

[In reference to the Butlerian Jihad and computer technology] "The assumption that a whole system can be made to work better through an assualt on its concious elements betrays a dangerous ignorance. This has often been the ignorant approach of those who call themselves scientists and technologists."