Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new.
Interpretation
People tend to argue confidently about things they know little about, while greater knowledge leads to caution in judgments.
This quote by Galileo Galilei reflects on human behavior regarding knowledge and opinions. It suggests that those who lack understanding often exhibit the most confidence in their arguments, while those with a deeper comprehension of a multitude of subjects tend to be more reserved and thoughtful when faced with new ideas. This highlights the paradox that ignorance can breed certainty, whereas knowledge fosters humility and reflection.
In practice
In a debate on climate change, one might quote Galileo to illustrate how uninformed opinions can overshadow informed discourse.
It has always seemed to me extreme presumptuousness on the part of those who want to make human ability the measure of what nature can and knows how to do, since, when one comes down to it, there is not one effect in nature, no matter how small, that even the most speculative minds can fully understand.
We must say that there are as many squares as there are numbers.
Science proceeds more by what it has learned to ignore than what it takes into account.
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.
That sculpture is more admirable than painting for the reason that it contains relief and painting does not is completely false. ... Rather, how much more admirable the painting must be considered, if having no relief at all, it appears to have as much as sculpture!
If you have a problem with people living their lives and being authentically who they are, you really should go and do some soul-searching.
When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new.
Half-instructed confessors have done my soul great harm; for I could not always have such learned ones as I would have desired. They certainly did not wish to deceive me, but the fact was that they knew no better. Of something which was a venial sin, they said it was no sin, and out of a very grave mortal sin they made a venial sin. This has done me such harm, that my speaking here of so great an evil, as a warning to others, will be readily understood.
Confidence, of course is an admirable asset to a golfer, but it should be an unspoken confidence. It is perilous to put it into speech. The gods of golf lie in wait to chasten the presumptious.
Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.
Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.
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