You're missing the point. "Authorities are always wrong" is not only demonstrably false (I could have listed a dozen other examples), it practically invites the reader to think that reversed stupidity is intelligence. We follow the wisdom of the majority because we don't have the cognitive capacity to reason through every problem as if it were new, and by doing what the majority does in scenarios where we're not domain experts, we're at least guaranteed a "not-terrible" outcome, even if it's sub-optimal.
My interpretation is that this quote is aimed at people who do have the cognitive capacity to reason through specific problems that are important to them, but are failing to do so because they put too much trust in authorities.
Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are: