Topic

Self-knowledge

Self-knowledge in this collection is consistently described as difficult, partial, and necessary. Twain's man-acknowledging-himself-a-liar is the most truthful entry: honesty about dishonesty is among the rarest forms of self-knowledge available. Goethe appears twice, and both entries resist resolution: I do not know myself and God forbid that I should — the second clause is the important one, turning ignorance from failure into protection. Talent-develops-in-tranquility is here because character formation requires the current of actual life rather than the still water of self-examination. The fortune-doesn't-change-a-man-only-unmasks-him proverb makes self-knowledge dependent on external pressure: you discover what you are when circumstances remove the ability to choose otherwise. Wilde's awakening-to-fame is the social mirror: who you are is sometimes revealed to you by how others respond before you have understood it yourself. Byron's transition-from-boyhood entry is the autobiographical founding: the moment of self-consciousness is the moment self-knowledge becomes necessary, and also the moment it becomes difficult.

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Humility is to make a right estimate of one's self

Source: Gleanings Among the Sheaves, Humility (1869)

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar

I do not know myself and God forbid that I should

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; these three alone lead one to sovereign power

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.

From the errors of others, a wise man corrects his own

It is impossible to underrate human intelligence - beginning with one's own

The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing

My unconscious knows more about the consciousness of the psychologist than his consciousness knows about my unconscious

Talent develops in tranquility, character in the full current of human life

I awoke one morning and found myself famous

Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are.

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation

Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are

We cannot remember too often that when we observe nature, and especially the ordering of nature, it is always ourselves alone we are observing

Fortune doesn't change a man, it only unmasks him.

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't