- English translation
When people remarked that blindness must be hard, the one-eyed man replied, 'I already know half the story.'
- Literal wording
They said to the one-eyed man: 'Blindness is hard.' He said: 'Half the news is with me.'
- Meaning and lesson
The saying describes someone who already knows part of a matter from personal experience. Told that total blindness is a hard fate, the one-eyed man answers that he already holds half the knowledge, since he has lost one eye. His partial share of the condition gives him a real, if incomplete, understanding.
More broadly, it fits anyone whose acquaintance with a situation is genuine but limited. Such a person can speak about it from within rather than by hearsay. The humor lies in the dry understatement: what others treat as an abstract misfortune, he already lives with in part.
- When it is used
Use it when someone treats a hardship as remote and the listener has already met part of it firsthand. It is a wry reply claiming partial, lived knowledge, not full expertise. The figure is a one-eyed man; take care it is not heard as mocking visual impairment.
- Register
- colloquial
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
Report an issue with this meaning: When people remarked that blindness must be hard, the one-eyed man replied, 'I already know half the story.'