half-knowledge

Keats, to take one example, developed his idea of negative capability — the capacity to tolerate “uncertainties, mysteries, doubts,” without the need to overextend half-knowledge — partly through the example of Shakespeare.

This life, so full of misunderstanding and half-knowledge, has its joys, Isabel thinks in her last days.

This half-knowledge works in me like a kind of possession, and for a few minutes I’m taken over by it.

“Empathy and love stand next to cruelty and crime. Individual guilt, trauma and pain are looming as large as eventual forgiveness and the ability to live in half-knowledge. Ultimately, Idaho evolves into a masterpiece on the redeeming and regenerative potential of music, poetry, literature and art.”

“Though I feel it is a mistake. My people have no gods, no ghosts or dæmons. We live and die and that is that. Human affairs bring us nothing but sorrow and trouble, but we have language and we make war and we use tools; maybe we should take sides. But full knowledge is better than half-knowledge. Lyra, read your instrument. Know what it is that you’re asking. If you still want it then, I shall mend the knife.”