best quotations about
Self-knowledge |
| 60 quotes | Visits: 4,026 |
Quotations
 | Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think and twice as beautiful as you’d ever imagined. — Rumi, 1207-1273, Persian mystic & poet 17 likes |
 | He who knows others is wise, but he who knows himself is enlightened. — Lao-Tzu, 6th cent. BC, Chinese philosopher 13 likes |
 | The only journey is the one within. — Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875-1926, Czech-German poet 12 likes |
 | Self-knowledge is not knowledge but a story one tells about oneself. — Simone De Beauvoir, 1908-1986, French writer 9 likes |
 | In his private heart no man respects himself. — Mark Twain, 1835-1910, American writer 8 likes |
 | Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do. — Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274, Italian Dominican friar & philosopher 8 likes |
 | One's own self is well hidden from one's own self: of all mines of treasure, one's own is the last to be dug up. — Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900, German philosopher 8 likes |
| He who overcomes others is strong, but he who overcomes himself is mightier still. — Lao-Tzu, 6th cent. BC, Chinese philosopher 7 likes |
 | The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. — Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948, Indian leader of independence 6 likes |
 | Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away. — Wolfgang Goethe, 1749-1832, German poet & philosopher 6 likes |
| What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours –that is what you must be able to attain. To be solitary as you were when you were a child. — Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875-1926, Czech-German poet 6 likes |
| To become what one is, one must not have the faintest idea what one is. — Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900, German philosopher 5 likes |
 | Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves. — Eric Hoffer, 1902-1983, American writer & philosopher 5 likes |
 | Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people. — Karl Jung, 1875-1961, Swiss psychiatrist 5 likes |
| By God, when you see your beauty you will be the idol of yourself. — Rumi, 1207-1273, Persian mystic & poet 5 likes |
| Why are you so enchanted by this world, when a mine of gold lies within you? — Rumi, 1207-1273, Persian mystic & poet 5 likes |
 | Most people are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, frightfully objective sometimes –but the task is precisely to be objective toward oneself and subjective toward all others. — Søren Kierkegaard, 1813-1855, Danish philosopher 5 likes |
 | To be happy you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world. — George Santayana, 1863-1952, Spanish-American philosopher 4 likes |
 | To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge. — Confucius, 551-479 BC, Chinese teacher & philosopher 4 likes |
 | Only the shallow know themselves. — Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900, Irish writer 4 likes |
| Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. — Karl Jung, 1875-1961, Swiss psychiatrist 4 likes |
 | Adversity is the state in which man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then. — Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, English writer 3 likes |
 | To enter into your own mind you need to be armed to the teeth. — Paul Valery, 1871-1945, French poet 3 likes |
| Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. — Karl Jung, 1875-1961, Swiss psychiatrist 3 likes |
 | There are 10 men in me and I do not know or understand one of them. — Carl Sandburg, 1878-1967, American poet 3 likes |
 | When men ask me how I know so much about men, they get a simple answer: everything I know about men, I learned from me. — Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904, Russian writer 3 likes |
| How do I know who I am or where I am? How could a single wave locate itself in an ocean? — Rumi, 1207-1273, Persian mystic & poet 3 likes |
| At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want. — Lao-Tzu, 6th cent. BC, Chinese philosopher 2 likes |
 | Nothing human is finally calculable; even to ourselves we are strange. — Gore Vidal, 1925-2012, American writer 2 likes |
 | Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self. — Jean-Luc Godard, 1930-2022, French film director 2 likes |
| Man will only become better when you make him see what he is like. — Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904, Russian writer 2 likes |
| Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you. — Rumi, 1207-1273, Persian mystic & poet 2 likes |
| The desire to know your own soul will end all other desires. — Rumi, 1207-1273, Persian mystic & poet 2 likes |
 | All the information I have about myself is from forged documents. — Vladimir Nabokov, 1899-1977, Russian-American writer 2 likes |
 | There is someone who is living my life. And I know nothing about him. |
 | Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self. |
| Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it. |
 | All types of knowledge, ultimately mean self knowledge. |
 | Young man, the secret of my success is that at an early age I discovered that I was not God. |
 | The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe. |
 | If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion. |
| This is what the things can teach us: to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly. |
| Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows. |
 | When a person is consumed in everyday life, he avoids the deepest worries and penetrating self-examination. |
 | I think of mythology as the homeland of the muses, the inspirers of art, the inspirers of poetry. To see life as a poem and yourself participating in a poem is what the myth does for you. |
 | Any life, however long and complicated it may be, actually consists of a single moment: the moment when a man knows forever more who he is. |
 | The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself. All that you despise, all that you loathe, all that you reject, all that you condemn and seek to convert by punishment springs from you. |
| The artist who becomes thoroughly aware consequently ceases to be one. |
 | Maybe everything’s not so hard, maybe life is so much easier than I thought, you just need courage, you just need to have a sense of yourself, then you’ll discover your hidden resources. |
 | The problem with introspection is that it has no end. |
 | The closer you get to the light, the more you know yourself full of shadows. |
 | It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves. |
Quotes in Verse
| Doing as others told me, I was blind. Coming when others called me, I was lost. Then I left everyone, myself as well. Then I found everyone, myself as well. — Rumi, 1207-1273, Persian mystic & poet 8 likes |
Funny Quotes
 | Having failed to conquer myself, my best hope now is to arrange an alliance with myself. — Ashleigh Brilliant, 1933-, British cartoonist & epigrammatist |
Ancient Greek
 | It is difficult to know yourself; it is easy to give advice to others. Δύσκολον τον εαυτόν γνώναι, εύκολον τω άλλω υποτίθεσθαι. — Thales of Miletus, 643-548 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 15 likes |
 | Know thyself. Γνώθι σαυτόν. (attributed to several ancient Greek sages, inscribed in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi) 13 likes |
 | Look within. Within is the fountain of the good, and it will ever bubble up, if you wilt ever dig. Ένδον σκάπτε, ένδον η πηγή του αγαθού και αεί αναβλύειν δυναμένη, εάν αεί σκάπτεις. — Marcus Aurelius, 121-180 AD, Roman Emperor ‐ Meditations VII, 59 9 likes |
 | I searched for myself. Εδιζησάμην εμεωυτόν. — Heraclitus, 544-484 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 8 likes |
 | Be what you know you are. Γένοι’ οίος εσσί μαθών. — Pindar, 522-438 BC, Ancient Greek lyric poet 6 likes |
Proverbs
 | No one sees the hump on his own back. 3 likes |
