Not For Itself

The truth is, that most men want knowledge, not for itself, but for the superiority which knowledge confers; and the means they employ to secure this superiority, are as wrong as the ultimate object, for no man can ever end with being superior, who will not begin with being inferior.   

-- Sydney Smith (1771 - 1845), English clergyman, critic, philosopher, and wit, Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1849)