The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency, #2)

by John Scalzi

the cynical could afford the luxury of their cynicism because of the stability of the system they mocked.

When a lie has negative consequences, people dislike it. But otherwise? They move on, and eventually the lie as a lie is forgotten, or in this case, codified as the foundation of religious practice and buffed and sanded into something prettier and more congenial.

There were more than a few scientists who knew one little thing, and then thought that knowledge was universally applicable to every other problem, to the point of excluding or discounting information from people whose specialty was that other problem.

Confidence isn’t about knowing you’re right. Confidence is about knowing you can make it right.