negative capability

...several things dovetailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason…

—John Keats, in a letter to his brothers, Dec. 21, 1817

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