Know thyself
idea · 8 works · 9 mentions · 12 anchored passages
self-knowledge · Know Thyself · know himself · know thyself · self-examination · KNOW THYSELF · Knowing thyself · gnothi seauton · know myself · know yourself
spoken of as
2 expressionsSelf-knowledge“Know Thyself”5 mentions
Memorabilia (Greek) · Alcibiades 1 (Greek) · Charmides (Greek) · Cyropaedia (Greek)
My good man, don’t be ignorant of yourself:
The Delphic injunction“Know thyself”1 mention
Orations (Greek)
) So that he would no longer obey the Delphic injunction, which bade him above all things know himself?
in the texts
Memorabilia
The Socratic injunction to know and examine oneself, invoked directly in urging Charmides toward civic action and again in the later discussion of madness as self-delusion.
My good man, don’t be ignorant of yourself:
but not to know yourself, and to assume and think that you know what you do not, he put next to Madness.
Tell me, Euthydemus, have you ever been to Delphi?
Tusculan Disputations
The Delphic maxim, attributed to Apollo, interpreted here as a command to know one's soul rather than one's body.
When, therefore, he says "Know thyself," he says this:
Orations
The maxim 'know thyself' associated with the Delphic oracle, used as the standard for the philosopher's self-examination.
) So that he would no longer obey the Delphic injunction, which bade him above all things know himself?
Alcibiades 1
The idea, anchored in the Delphic inscription, that knowing oneself is the necessary foundation for taking proper care of oneself and for political competence.
I agree, Socrates.
What do you mean by that?
With what intent do you say that, Socrates?
Charmides
The Delphic maxim 'Know Thyself,' which Critias equates with temperance and with the capacity to know what one does and does not know.
for Know thyself!
And so this is being temperate, or temperance, and knowing oneself—that one should know what one knows and what one does not know.
For I would almost say that this very thing, self-knowledge, is temperance, and I am at one with him who put up the inscription of those words at Delphi.
Phaedrus
The Delphic injunction to self-knowledge that Socrates cites as his reason for declining to rationalize every myth.
I am not yet able, as the Delphic inscription has it, to know myself;
Consolation to Marcia
The maxim inscribed at the oracle of Delphi (Pytho), invoked as authoritative wisdom about human limitation.
This, surely, is what that utterance inscribed at the Pythian oracle says:
Cyropaedia
The Delphic requirement that Croesus know himself, reinterpreted as recognizing his political and martial limits.
Knowing thyself, O Croesus—thus shalt thou live and be happy.
but I thought that everybody knows who and what he himself is.
Therefore, as I was thus without knowledge, I have my just deserts.