Conflict acting on intelligence creates imagination. Faced with conflict, creatures are forced to imagine what will happen, where the next threat will come from. If there has never been conflict, imagination never develops. Wits arise in answer to danger, to pain, to tragedy. No one ever got smarter eating easy apples.
Sheri S. Tepper (2013). “Sheri S Tepper SF Gateway Omnibus: After Long Silence, Shadow's End, Six Moon Dance”, p.900, Hachette UK