Meaning of “To define is to limit.”

Reality exceeds any one viewpoint, so confidence in a perspective should leave room for what has not yet been seen.

The line separates events from the judgments people place on them, a useful distinction for thinking about perception and response.

Blake imagines habitual perception as a filter that narrows reality; cleansing it would reveal a less limited world.

The aphorism separates the fact that something exists from the expectation that existence must be rational or well ordered.

Understanding a position requires serious contact with competing arguments; familiarity with only one side can produce confidence without real comprehension.

The aphorism suggests that inquiry is limited by the conceptual capacities of the person asking, making intellectual growth partly a matter of becoming able to formulate and recognize better questions.