Slowly, agonizingly, humans learned how the universe worked

Slowly, agonizingly, humans learned how the universe worked, abandoning most of the fanciful beliefs they carried through their long, dark loneliness. This included belief in—

• the divine right of egotistical kings,
• the mental incapacity of women,
• the idea that a wise state knows all,
• the idea that the individual is always right,
• the sick-sweet addiction that transforms a doctrine from a mere model of the world into something sacred, worth killing for.

— David Brin, Brightness Reef