I have been called arrogant myself in my time, and hope to earn the title again, but to claim that I am privy to the secrets of the universe and its creator - that's beyond my conceit.
Interpretation
The speaker acknowledges their arrogance but distinguishes between personal arrogance and claiming divine knowledge.
In this quote, Christopher Hitchens reflects on the nature of arrogance and the limits of human understanding. While he admits to being called arrogant, he asserts that it is a different matter entirely to claim knowledge of the universe and its creator, suggesting that such claims are beyond mere human conceit and delve into the realm of the unknowable or the divine.
In practice
During a discussion on humility and expertise, this quote could underscore the limits of human understanding.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way — because it’s had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But you’ve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
The will of God is always a bigger thing than we bargain for.
The world owes us nothing; we owe each other the world.
I am optimistic when I consider the spiritual dimension which the scientist's discipline forces him to ignore.
What am I now, Alai?" "Still good." "At what?" "At--anything. There's a million soldiers who'd follow you to the end of the universe." "I don't want to go to the end of the universe." "So where do you want to go? They'll follow you." I want to go home, thought Ender, but I don't know where it is.
As long as a man thinks, this struggle must go on, and so long man must have some form of religion.
Not to find one's way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal. It requires ignorance - nothing more. But to lose oneself in a city - as one loses oneself in a forest - that calls for a quite different schooling. Then, signboard and street names, passers-by, roofs, kiosks, or bars must speak to the wanderer like a cracking twig under his feet in the forest.
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