But how do we recognize ourselves? How can man know himself? He is a dark and hidden thing; whereas the hare is said to have seven skins, man can take off seven times seventy skins and still not be able to say: “That is you as you really are, that is no longer mere appearance.” Besides, it is a painful and dangerous undertaking to dig down into oneself in this way and to descend violently and directly into the shaft of one’s being. How easily he could injure himself doing this, so that no doctor could cure him.
ATTRIBUTION:
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher, classical scholar, critic of culture. Friedrich Nietzsche, Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe, vol. 1, p. 340, eds. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, Berlin, de Gruyter (1980); Schopenhauer as Educator, p. 5, trans. by James W. Hillesheim and Malcolm R. Simpson, Chicago, Gateway (1965). Schopenhauer as Educator, section 1 (1874).
A critical response to the dictum gnothi seauton (”know thyself”) inscribed over the entrance to Apollo’s temple at Delphi.
