"But then, anyone was capable of any manner of atrocities if they wanted something bad enough. People could justify anything to themselves if they wanted it bad enough. No one was immune to that."

"A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowls... Saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality?"

"Lust is a dangerous thing. It can make you believe things that are not real. It can seduce your mind and lead it blindfolded to the cliff that will be its demise."

"If the heights of our joy are measured by the depths of our gratitude, and gratitude is but a way of seeing, a spiritual perspective of smallness might offer a vital way of seeing especially conducive to gratitude."

"All these years! All this time with us -- have you learned nothing?!You only live by the grace of our clan's tenet of forgiveness!Your judgement is shit!Rectitude is the bone that gives firmness and stature. Without decency, neither talent nor learning can make the human frame into a samurai."

"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."