"Here's the teaching point, if you're teaching kids about intelligence and policy: Intelligence does not absolve policymakers of responsibility to ask tough questions, and it doesn't absolve them of having curiosity about the consequences of their actions."

"Plantie is a very strong Protestant, that is to say, he's against all churches, especially the Protestant: and he thinks a lot of Buddha, Karma and Confucius. He is also a bit of an anarchist and three or four years ago he took up Einstein and vitamins."

"The sun gives us light but the moon provides inspiration. If you look at the sun without shielding your eyes you'll go blind. If you look at the moon without covering your eyes you'll become a poet."

"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."

"Let him talk,' said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to reply. 'Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience, I a satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle."

"People have a tendency to shrink the boundaries of complex problems to fit into their back pocket and then, sure enough, grumble that their problems follow wherever they go."