There is ... an inverse correlation between the amount of power a person has and the level at which his or her mind functions. A person of ordinary intelligence who acquires power, of whatever kind, tends to develop an exaggerated view of his own capabilities. Sycophants gather. There is little or no criticism of decisions. As his ability to disrupt the lives of others advances, these tendencies become stronger. Eventually you end with Louis the Fourteenth, who thinks he’s done a good job for France, although the country he left behind was ruined.

Jack McDevitt, Infinity Beach 

Truer words ....

There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime.

Dead men don’t find things out. 

Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

 

You cannot make Italians really progressive; they are too intelligent. Men who see the short cut to good living will never go by the new elaborate roads.

G.K. Chesterton, in the The Paradise of Thieves (A Father Brown mystery)

Wisdom should reckon on the unforeseen.

 

G.K. Chesterton, in the The Blue Cross  (A Father Brown mystery) as attributed to "Poe."

Successful manipulation may be mistaken for intelligence.

GMG

[W]e didn't do much to alter the course of human history, did we?' said Philip. 'As one old spy to another, I reckon I'd have been more use running a boys' club. Don't know what you feel.'

John le Carré, Silverview

Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless.  There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change.

H.G.Wells, The Time Machine

It is a marvel that our perceptions are so often correct, given the rapidity, the near instantaneity, with which they are constructed.

Oliver Sacks, The River of Consciousness

 

Events cause knowledge, but knowledge does not cause events. 

Montaigne

We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing.

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

In truth, knowledge is not so absolutely necessary as judgment; the last may make shift without the other, but the other never without this.

Michel de Montaigne

The whole meaning of the universe, its beauty, is contained in the consciousness of intelligent life.  We are the consciousness of the universe, and our job is to spread that around, to go look at things, to live everywhere we can. 

Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars

True ambivalence: not feeling unsure, but feeling opposing extremes of conviction at once....ambivalence holds more information than any single emotion.

Rivka Galchen, "Dream Machine" The New Yorker (May 2, 2011)

I do not want this world. I do not like this world. I do not need this world. I do not need to feel sympathetic for this world or its inhabitants. If only they did not need me...

A fictional agent of the UN Security Council in Singularity Sky by Charles Stross