Gnothi Sauton
To “Know Thyself” is the goal of this tradition. We accept the basic fact that it is impossible to fully know another person, no matter how close we might be in friendship, love or hate. This incapability of understanding also limits our judgments and perceptions of others’ actions. It is for this reason that we cannot absolutely judge others. While we may have our personal likes and dislikes, we understand that we are their root, not other people. To know ourselves means to accept our personal biases, prejudices, habits, morals, and that the faults we see in others are really fears, ineptitude, and aggressions within ourselves.
Quotations
These quotes are meant to inspire and clarify, not define the various traditions. There is no order to the quotations under the specific tradition. While this may make it difficult to search, the scattering is meant to portray a larger concept: there is no order or hierarchy amongst world religions.Similarly, some quotes are not even from sacred or spiritual texts in the traditional sense; inspiration can come from any source.
Our sources are listed at the end along with the ISBN’s of our texts. We encourage all readers to consult the original source (preferably in the original language) for their own spiritual guidance and clarification.
Feel free to add comments with your own favorite quotations.
“[The massagers sent from Jerusalem asked of John] ‘Who are you, that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?
He [John] said: ‘I am “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,”…”
(The Bible, John 1:22-23)
“For, d’ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate vapor. And so, through all the think mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, intuitions of all things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye.”
(Moby Dick, p. 314)
“‘Because of this, unlike any other living thing on earth, mankind is twofold–in the body mortal but immortal in the essential man. Even though he is immortal and has authority over all things, mankind is affected by mortality because he is subject to fate; thus, although man is above the cosmic framework, he became a slave within it. He is androgyne because he comes from an androgyne father, and he never sleeps because he comes from one who is sleepless. <Yet love and sleep are his> masters.’”
(Hermetica, Corpus Hermeticum I, p. 3, v. 14)
“The Lord said, ‘Blessed is he who is before he came into being. For he who is, has been and shall be.”
(Nag Hammadi, The Gospel of Philip, p. 148)
“The whole race of men on this earth springs from one stock. There is one Father of all things; One alone provides for all. He gave Phoebus his rays, the moon his horns. To the earth He gave men, to the sky the stars. He clothed with bodies he souls He brought from heaven.
“Thus, all men come from noble origin. Why then boast of your ancestors? If you consider your beginning, and God your Maker, no one is base unless he deserts his birthright and makes himself a slave to vice.”
(Boethius, p. 53)
“Jesus said, ‘If those who lead you say to you, “See, the kingdom is in the sky,” then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, “It is in the sea,” then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.”
(Nag Hammadi, Gospel of Thomas, p. 126)
“The Khalifa said to Laila, ‘Art thou really she
for whom Majnun lost his head and went distracted?
Thou art not fairer than many other fair ones.’
She replied, ‘Be silent; thou art not Marjnun!’”
(God’s Breath, Book of Rumi, p.167)
“I (Lady Philosophy) do not need your library with its glass walls and ivory decoration, but I do need my place in your mind. For there I have placed not books but that which gives value to books, the ideas which are found in my writings.”
(Boethius, p. 16)
“Care about people’s approval
and you will be their prisoner.”
(Tao te Ching, ch. 9)
“And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.
“Then He said to them, ‘Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.’
“They immediately left their nets and followed Him.”
(The Bible, Matthew 4:18-20)
“Knowing the Self, sustaining
the self by the Self, Arjuna,
kill the difficult-to-conquer
enemy called desire.”
(Bhagavad Gita, p. 70)
“What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the deaks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who aint a slave? Tell me that.” Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or another served in much the same way—either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content.”
(Moby Dick, p. 15)
“The superiority of man is not obvious to the eye, but lies in what is hidden from view. Consequently he has mastery over the animals which are stronger than he is and great in terms of the obvious and the hidden. This enables them to survive. But if man is separated from them, they slay one another and bite one another. They ate one another because they did not find any food. But now they have found food because man tilled the soil.”
(Nag Hammadi, The Gospel of Philip, p. 148 )
“Hey, noble one! Those pure lands are not anywhere else–they abide in your own heart within its center and four directions.”
(God’s Breath, Tibetan Book of the Dead, p. 499)
“When you are content to be simply yourself
and don’t compare or compete,
everybody will respect you.”
(Tao te Ching, ch. 8 )
“‘Let the person who is mindful recognize himself.’”
(Hermetica, Corpus Hermeticum I, p. 5, v. 21)
“Ravenous greed would devour everything and then discover other wants. No bridle can restrain man’s disordered desires within reasonable bounds. Even when he is filled with great favors, he burns with thirst for more. No man can be rich who cries fearfully and considers himself to be poor.”
(Boethius, p. 25)
“He who finds peace and joy
and radiance within himself–
that man becomes one with God
and vanishes into God’s bliss.”
(Bhagavad Gita, p. 86)
“And a man said, Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.
And he answered saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.
And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs raise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weight your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’
Say not, ‘I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, ‘I have met the soul walking upon my path.”
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.”
(Gibran, The Prophet, pp. 54-5)
“You cannot hide the soul.”
(Moby Dick, p. 52)
“Are you more difficult to create or the heavens?”
(Al-Qur’ān, 79:27)
“Other creatures are content with what they have; but you, made in the likeness of God by virtue of your reason, choose ornaments for your excellent nature form base things, without understanding how great an injury you do to you Creator.”
(Boethius, p. 32)
“It [the Tao] is always present within you.”
(Tao te Ching, ch. 6)
“Mankind knows himself and knows the world: thus, it follows that he is mindful of what his roles and what is useful to him; also, that he recognizes what interests he should serve, giving greatest thanks and praise to god and honoring his image but not ignoring that he, too, is the second image of god, who has two images, world and mankind.”
(Hermetica, Asclepius, v. 10)
“For none of the heavenly gods will go down to earth, leaving behind the bounds of heaven, yet the human rises up to heaven and takes its measure and knows what is in its heights and its depths, and he understands all else exactly and–greater than all of this–he comes to be on high without leaving earth behind, so enormous is his range. Therefore, we must dare to say that the human on earth is a mortal god but that god in heaven is an immortal human.”
(Hermetica, Corpus Hermeticum X, v. 25)
“The more you know,
the less you understand.”
(Tao te Ching, ch. 47)
“[The Lord said to them] ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authroity. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…”
(The Bible, Acts 1:7-8 )
“Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.”
(Tao te Ching, ch. 33)
“Enjoined on you is fighting,
and this you abhor.
You may dislike a thing
yet it may be good for you
but may be bad for you.
Only God has knowledge, and you do not know.”
(Al-Qur’ān, 2:216)
“And believe in what I have sent down
which verifies what is already with you…”
(Al-Qur’ān, 2:41)
Real self-knowledge consists in knowing the following things: What are you in yourself and where did you come from? Where are you going and for what purpose are you tarrying here awhile? In what does your real happiness and misery consist?
(Al-Ghazzali, Essential Sufism, p. 2)
“A man was passing a mental hospital. He called out to one of the patients peering through the windows, ‘How many madmen are there in the hospital?’ Looking the questioner up and down, the inmate replied, ‘Why don’t you leave us alone? But tell me, how many sane people are there out there?’ The precondition is to know yourself. He who does not know cannot find, and he who does not find cannot be.”
(Sheikh Muzaffer, Essential Sufism, p. 46)
“You, together with your offspring, are from the primeval father; from above, out of the imperishable light, their souls are come. Thus the authorities cannot approach them because of the sprit of truth present within them; and all who have become acquainted with this way exist deathless in the midst of dying mankind. Still that sown element will not become known now.”
(Nag Hammadi, The Hypostasis of the Archons, p. 169)
“So while you accompany me [the savior], although you are uncomprehending, you have (in fact) already come to know, and you will be called ‘the one who knows himself.’ For he who has not known himself has known nothing, but he who has known himself has at the same time already achieved knowledge about the depth of the all. So then you, my brother Thomas, have beheld what is obscure to men, that is, wha they ignorantly stumble against.”
(Nag Hammadi, The Book of Thomas the Contender, p. 201)
“…Thou art what Thou art, Thou art who Thou art!”
(Nag Hammadi, The Gospel of the Egyptians, p. 219)
“I am he who was within me.”
(Nag Hammadi, The (First) Apocalypse of James, p. 265)
“You cannot receive understanding unless you know first that you posses <it>. In everything there is again this sentence.”
(Nag Hammadi, The Sentences of Sextus, p. 505)
“For the Son of Man is within you. Follow after him! Those who seek him will find him.”
(Nag Hammadi, The Gospel of Mary, p. 525)
“And when they changed the nature of their works, their designs, it was enough that the eyes be marred by the Heart of Sky. They were blinded as the face of a mirror is breathed upon.”
(Popol Vuh, p. 167)
Sources
Bhagavad Gita. (c. 500 B.C.E to 100 C.E.; trans. 2000). (Stephen Mitchell trans.). New York: Harmony Books.
ISBN: 060960550X
Boethius (524 C.E; trans. 1962). The Consolation of Philosophy. (Richard Green trans.). New Jersey: Macmillan Publishing Company.
ISBN: 002346450X
Gibran, Kahlil. (first printed 1923, this edition: 2001). The Prophet. New York: Alfred A Knopf.
ISBN: 0394404289
Hermetica. (1992). (Brian P. Copenhaver, Trans.). London: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN: 0521425433
Lao Tzu. (original composition date unknown, possibly c. 500 B.C.E; trans. 1991). Tao Te Ching. (Stephen Mitchell trans.). New York: Harper Perennial.
ISBN: 0060916087
Melville, Herman. (first printed: 1851, this edition: 1967). Moby Dick. London: England. W.W. Norton & Company.
ISBN: 039309670X
Miller, J, Kenedi, A. (Eds.). (2000). God’s Breath: Sacred Scriptures from Around the World. New York: Marlowe & Company.
ISBN: 1569246181
Muhammad. (trans. 1993). Al-Qur’ān. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
ISBN: 0691074992
Rudolph, Kurt. (1987). Gnosis: the Nature and History of Gnosticism. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco.
ISBN: 0060670185
