Quote by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Whenever nature leaves a hole in a person's mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit.
Summary
This quote suggests that when individuals lack knowledge or understanding in certain areas, they often compensate for it by having an exaggerated sense of their own abilities or knowledge. Nature, metaphorically represented as filling the "hole" in the mind, does so with a strong sense of self-conceit. In other words, people tend to inflate their own egos and overestimate their competence in order to compensate for their lack of knowledge or understanding in specific subjects. This quote highlights the tendency for individuals to rely on self-assurance as a defense mechanism when encountering intellectual gaps.