“Indifference and contempt will always be able to take on an aura of intellectual superiority over sympathy and love for others.”

— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Immer wird die Gleichgültigkeit und die Menschenverachtung dem Mitgefühl und der Menschenliebe gegenüber einen Schein von geistiger Ueberlegenheit annehmen können.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 75.

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Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach81

Austrian writer 1830–1916

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“Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves.”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

"Lectures On The Elevation Of The Labouring Portion Of The Community: Lecture II", in The Works of William Ellery Channing, D.D. (1844) Vol. III, p. 81
Context: Undoubtedly some men are more gifted than others, and are marked out for more studious lives. But the work of such men is not to do others' thinking for them, but to help them to think more vigorously and effectually. Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves. The light and life which spring up in one soul are to be spread far and wide. Of all treasons against humanity, there is no one worse than his, who employs great intellectual force to keep down the intellect of his less-favoured brother.

“In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Revenge
Essays (1625)
Variant: Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon.