Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London’s most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays and the circumstances of his imprisonment, followed by his early death. Among his best known works are The Happy Prince, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere’s Fan.

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; an true progress is to know more, and do more, and be more.
Know Thyself’ was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, ‘Be Thyself’ shall be written.
The message of Christ to man was simply “Be Thyself.” That is the secret of Christ.


Further Reading:
Hermann Hesse on Know Thyself
Walt Whitman on Know Thyself
Emerson on Know Thyself