I've begun reading Feynman's The pleasure of finding things out and it seems there's a good quote every other page. This is from page 13:
When I was in high school, one of the first honors I got was to be a
member of the Arista - which is a groups of kids who got good grades.
Everybody wanted to be a member of the Arista. And when I got into the
Arista, I discovered that what they did in their meetings was to sit
around to discuss who else was worthy to join this wonderful group that we
are. OK? So we sat around trying to decide who it was who would get to be
allowed in to this Arista. This kind of thing bothers me psychologically
for one or another reason I don't understand myself. Honors, from that day
to this, have always bothered me. I had trouble when I became a member of
the National Academy of Science and I had ultimately to resign because
there was another organization most of whose time was spent in choosing
who was illustrious enough to be allowed to join us in our organization.
...The whole thing was rotten because its purpose was mostly to decide who
could have this honor. OK? I don't like honors.'
