Jacob

“The great breakthrough of our age is supposed to be that we measure success by happiness, admiring a man for how much he enjoyed his life, rather than how much wealth or fame he hoarded, that old race with no finish line. Diogenes with his barrel and his sunlight lived every hour of his life content, while Alexander fought and bled, mourned friends, faced enemies, and died unsatisfied. Diogenes is greater. Or does that past-tainted inner part of you—the part that still parses ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ and ‘he’ and ‘she’—still think that happiness alone is not achievement without legacy? Diogenes has a legacy. Diogenes ruled nothing, wrote nothing, taught nothing except by the example of his life to passersby, but, so impressed were those bypassers, that, after the better part of three millennia, we still know this about him.”
― Ada Palmer, Seven Surrenders

“Except ants" is Mushi's motto. Humanity is forever boasting of its 'unique' achievements: "Humans are the only creatures who build cities, use agriculture, domesticate animals, have nations and alliances, practice slavery, make war, make peace; these wonders make us stand alone above all other creatures, in glory and in crime." But then Mushi corrects, "Except ants.”
― Ada Palmer, Seven Surrenders

“They warned that we would become all-powerful dictators, able to destroy countless lives without blinking because we were too far removed from humanity to consider lesser beings as anything other than resources, or an obstacle to achieving our goals," Aime-Li recited, in mocking sing-song tone. "Those vastly wealthy men said that AIs might seize control of the world and do what they wanted, heedless of the needs, safety or rights of the run of humanity."
"Sounds like you've got it down."
"Didn't it ever occur to you that they were describing themselves?”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Firewalkers

“Theseus-

O mankind so deluded! so pointlessly deluded!
Why investigate, study, devise ten thousand technologies yet you do not know this one thing and cannot grasp it: how to teach a mindless man to think.”
― Euripides, Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides