We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.

"Believe only half of what you see, and nothing that you hear," is a cynical saying, and yet less bitter than at first appears. It does not argue that human nature is false, but simply that it is human nature. How can any fallible human being with two eyes, two ears, one judgment, and one brain — all more or less limited in their apprehensions of things external, and biased by a thousand internal impressions, purely individual — how can we possibly decide on even the plainest actions of another, to say nothing of the words, which may have gone through half-a-dozen different translations and modifications, or the motives, which can only be known to the Omniscient Himself?

The truths that matter most to us come always half spoken.

Most of our failures in understanding one another have less to do with what is heard than with what is intended and what is inferred.

A person hears only what they understand.

Knowledge is only one half. Faith is the other.

Only half of writing is saying what you mean. The other half is preventing people from reading what they expected you to mean.

Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.

We say to others only what we need to hear.

A man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically or intellectually or morally, as animals conceive at certain seasons their kind only. We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.

[Truman Show] We think that we see/ but we can't see the half/ we think we learn/ but we can't do the math.

understanding a question is half an answer

We are what we are, and half of what we are is what we are not.

Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener.