#dat nose

“Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage amongst his books. For to you the Kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned by the flicking of a finger."— Gordon R. Dickson,Tactics of Mistake

But seriously, Palpatine is a cerebral villain and academic, which makes him so fantastic! The Darth Plagueis novel makes it clear, and Plagueis even teases him about it. And in other parts of the EU, he was known to write political science books for universities. This doubtless means he guest-lectured, and like many of our world leaders today probably held endless honorary degrees from universities all around the galaxy. 

For Palpatine, knowledge is power.