“Why so many of us a million years ago purposely knocked out major chunks of our brains with alcohol from time to time remains an interesting mystery. It may be we were trying to give evolution a shove in the right direction — in the direction of smaller brains.”

—  Kurt Vonnegut , book Galápagos

Galápagos (1985)

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Kurt Vonnegut 318
American writer 1922–2007

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“Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.”

Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician

James Burgh, in The Dignity of Human Nature, Or, A Brief Account of the Certain and Established Means for Attaining the True End of Our Existence (1754); this is very widely misattributed to Mann, appearing at least as early as the publication of Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867) edited by Mary Mann.
Misattributed

“Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.”

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician

Variant in other editions: Do not think of knocking out another person's brains, because he differs in opinion from you; it will be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from what you thought ten years ago.
The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)

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“If our brains were simple enough for us to understand them, we'd be so simple that we couldn't.”

Ian Stewart (1945) British mathematician and science fiction author

Source: The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World

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