An Aphorism

Maybe one day I'll put together a collection of my pithiest sayings. Here's one that might qualify:

An academic paper paper will always be much less knowledgeable than its author—and much more sure of itself.

This may of course be because knowledge and certainty are inversely proportional. The more you know the less certain you are. An academic paper, however, reports only part of what you know and therefore allows you to invert the proportions once again.