Holse had no idea how these things worked; he had never really bothered with religion, though he had always paid lip-service to the church for the sa… - Iain Banks

On this purely practical issue he judged massacre wasteful and even contrary as a method of control. Fear lasted a week, anger a year and resentment a lifetime, he’d held.

Never forget I am not this silver body, Mahrai. I am not an animal brain, I am not even some attempt to produce an AI through software running on a computer. I am a Culture Mind. We are close to gods, and on the far side.
We are quicker; we live faster and more completely than you do, with so many more senses, such a greater store of memories and at such a fine level of detail. We die more slowly, and we die more completely, too.

The source of my name," the vehicle had replied, "The Hundredth Idiot, is a quotation: 'One hundred idiots make idiotic plans and carry them out. All but one justly fail. The hundredth idiot, whose plan succeeded through pure luck, is immediately convinced he's a genius.' It is an old proverb.