those who stand to gain from the manipulation of truth often prey on those bereft of critical thinking. - Maria Popova

Ambition is disfigured into arrogance when it becomes unmoored from self-awareness, from a realistic assessment of one's competences.

My own sense is that one aided the other, as those who stand to gain from the manipulation of truth often prey on those bereft of critical thinking.

Seeds are planted and come abloom generations, centuries, civilizations later, migrating across coteries and countries and continents. Meanwhile, people live and people die — in peace as war rages on, in poverty and disrepute as latent fame awaits, with much that never meets its more, in shipwrecked love.