“Because if you don’t accept excuses, pretty soon people stop giving them, and they start looking for solutions. And that is a critical issue when it comes to success.”

“There is an old Eastern fable about a traveler who is taken unawares on the steppes by a ferocious wild animal. In order to escape the beast the traveler hides in an empty well, but at the bottom of the well he sees a dragon with its jaws open, ready to devour him. The poor fellow does not dare to climb out because he is afraid of being eaten by the rapacious beast, neither does he dare drop to the bottom of the well for fear of being eaten by the dragon. So he seizes hold of a branch of a bush that is growing in the crevices of the well and clings on to it. His arms grow weak and he knows that he will soon have to resign himself to the death that awaits him on either side. Yet he still clings on, and while he is holding on to the branch he looks around and sees that two mice, one black and one white, are steadily working their way round the bush he is hanging from, gnawing away at it. Sooner or later they will eat through it and the branch will snap, and he will fall into the jaws of the dragon. The traveler sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish. But while he is still hanging there he sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the bush, stretches out his tongue and licks them. In the same way I am clinging to the tree of life, knowing full well that the dragon of death inevitably awaits me, ready to tear me to pieces, and I cannot understand how I have fallen into this torment. And Itry licking the honey that once consoled me, but it no longer gives me pleasure. The white mouse and the black mouse – day and night – are gnawing at the branch from which I am hanging. I can see the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tastes sweet. I can see only one thing; the inescapable dragon and the mice, and I cannot tear my eyes away from them. And this is no fable but the truth, the truth that is irrefutable and intelligible to everyone.

“And that day dawned when Arrakis lay at the hub of the universe with the wheel poised to spin.”

“Nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.”

“You make experiments and I make theories. Do you know the difference? A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it.

“People who make growth their goal—instead of a title, position, salary, or other external target—always have a future.”

“Mothers and Dads: Your home atmosphere is the product of WORDS. Children fail because wrong WORDS were spoken. The right WORDS were not spoken.”

“Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own.”

“People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.”

“There are too many professed Christians who never get “wrought up” about anything; they never get indignant with injustice, with corruption in high places, or with the godless traffics which barter away the souls and bodies of people.”

“It is not as important how we start (our past), but how we finish.”

“Out of clutter, find simplicity.”

“Oh God, God, why did you take such trouble to force this creature out of its shell if it is now doomed to crawl back -- to be sucked back -- into it?”

“the world has the habit of making room for the man whose words and actions show that he knows where he is going.”

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who had practiced one kick 10,000 times.”