Who first said ‘Know thyself’? A friend and I were trying to remember this the other day. Shakespeare maybe? Aristotle? I looked it up online when I got home and learned it was Socrates, or at least Socrates’ words as reported by Plato .
As I read further I learned that Hobbes used a different expression – he wrote ‘Read thyself.’ I love this version. It suggests a way you can learn to know yourself. You have the text there before you – you! You stand off and observe yourself acting, thinking, doing, not doing. And you analyse and interpret and understand the person that you are. Works for me . . . I think.
Thanks for a thought provoking post Donna – I really like Hobbes’ expression too. It also makes me consider the act of reading as a form of ‘meta observation /commentary’. To share a favourite quotation that always resonates with me is from C.S.Lewis: “we read to know we are not alone”. K-A
That is so simple and so true.
I think I also read to be in the company of characters who become real people to me, and whom I care about. It’s a kind of friendship without the responsibilities. Even so, the feelings are intense and it can be very painful to say goodbye when you reach the last page. Some characters continue to people your world beyond the last page. Anna Karenina is always at that train station for me, struggling with her dilemmas. And a recent read, The Eye of the Sheep, by Sofie Laguna, gave me Jimmy and and his way of seeing. Unique.
There must be many reasons people read. Any other thoughts? Can you invite someone you know who would have a view to add a comment?
Why do you read?
I met a young Canadian woman who told me she came from Prince Edward Island, adding, ‘But you’ve probably never heard of it’. ‘Not heard of it?’, I exclaimed. ‘I grew up there!’ ‘Anne of Green Gables’ and all the subsequent ‘Anne’ books gave me a second life, much more intense and real than my own.
Such is the conjuring power of words that can let you have another life; that can transport you to new countries, cities, landscapes, and to worlds of new experience, ideas, and feelings. You enter into the hearts and minds of characters who become your friends, or enemies, for life. You can share with them the richness, beauty, mystery, and loneliness of life. You are not alone. It’s magic.
I’m currently reading Ian McEwan’s ‘Sweet Tooth’ and came across a rather different answer to the question why do we read. The narrator says:
‘Reading was my way of not thinking about maths. More than that (or do I mean less?), it was my way of not thinking.’ (p 6).
I can’t find on the internet that Plato alleged Socrates said the original first. Where did Plato write this?
There is no evidence that Socrates the historical figure said this as far as I know. But Socrates, as a character in Plato’s Republic, discusses the idea in the dialogues. Does that make sense?