Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

Credited to Aristotle

Not found

No. No source has been found for this sentence in Aristotle. It resembles the Delphic “know thyself”, but its wording and earliest printing remain untraced; related Aristotelian passages are not the same quotation.

The closest real passage, shown below, is found word for word by program in the Greek original and in D. P. Chase’s English translation; the shared line is not in it.

Closest passage
Nicomachean Ethics (330 BC), Book II, chapter 9 (1109b1–7)

Researched by AI; closest passage located by program on 31 October 2026. Entry updated 26 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check

Where you would expect it

The closest real passage: Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, chapter 9 (1109b1–7). The shared line is not in it.

¶218 en¶89 el

because of the two extremes the one is always more, and the other less, erroneous; and, therefore, since to hit exactly on the mean is difficult, one must take the least of the evils as the safest plan;[21] and this a man will be doing, if he follows this method.

Hom. Od. 12.219

¶219 en¶90 el
English, D. P. Chase

We ought also to take into consideration our own natural bias; which varies in each man’s case, and will be ascertained from the pleasure and pain arising in us. Furthermore, we should force ourselves off in the contrary direction, because we shall find ourselves in the mean after we have removed ourselves far from the wrong side, exactly as men do in straightening bent timber.1[22]

Greek, the original

Τῶν γὰρ ἄκρων τὸ μέν ἐστιν ἁμαρτωλότερον τὸ δ᾽ ἧττον· ἐπεὶ οὖν τοῦ μέσου τυχεῖν ἄκρως χαλεπόν, κατὰ τὸν δεύτερον, φασί, πλοῦν τὰ ἐλάχιστα ληπτέον τῶν κακῶν· τοῦτο δ᾽ ἔσται μάλιστα τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον ὃν λέγομεν. 1109b σκοπεῖν δὲ δεῖ πρὸς ἃ καὶ αὐτοὶ εὐκατάφοροί ἐσμεν· ἄλλοι γὰρ πρὸς ἄλλα πεφύκαμεν· τοῦτο δ᾽ ἔσται γνώριμον ἐκ τῆς ἡδονῆς καὶ τῆς λύπης τῆς γινομένης περὶ ἡμᾶς. εἰς τοὐναντίον δ᾽ ἑαυτοὺς ἀφέλκειν δεῖ· πολὺ γὰρ ἀπάγοντες τοῦ ἁμαρτάνειν εἰς τὸ μέσον ἥξομεν, ὅπερ οἱ τὰ διεστραμμένα τῶν ξύλων ὀρθοῦντες ποιοῦσιν.

¶220 en¶91 el

But in all cases we must guard most carefully against what is pleasant, and pleasure itself, because we are not impartial judges of it.

Ἐν παντὶ δὲ μάλιστα φυλακτέον τὸ ἡδὺ καὶ τὴν ἡδονήν· οὐ γὰρ ἀδέκαστοι κρίνομεν αὐτήν. ὅπερ οὖν οἱ δημογέροντες ἔπαθον πρὸς τὴν Ἑλένην, τοῦτο δεῖ παθεῖν καὶ ἡμᾶς πρὸς τὴν ἡδονήν, καὶ ἐν πᾶσι τὴν ἐκείνων ἐπιλέγειν φωνήν· οὕτω γὰρ αὐτὴν ἀποπεμπόμενοι ἧττον ἁμαρτησόμεθα. ταῦτ᾽ οὖν ποιοῦντες, ὡς ἐν κεφαλαίῳ εἰπεῖν, μάλιστα δυνησόμεθα τοῦ μέσου τυγχάνειν.

¶221 en¶92 el

We ought to feel in fact towards pleasure as did the old counsellors towards Helen, and in all cases pronounce a similar sentence; for so by sending it away from us, we shall err the less.[23]

Χαλεπὸν δ᾽ ἴσως τοῦτο, καὶ μάλιστ᾽ ἐν τοῖς καθ᾽ ἕκαστον· οὐ γὰρ ῥᾴδιον διορίσαι καὶ πῶς καὶ τίσι καὶ ἐπὶ ποίοις καὶ πόσον χρόνον ὀργιστέον· καὶ γὰρ ἡμεῖς ὁτὲ μὲν τοὺς ἐλλείποντας ἐπαινοῦμεν καὶ πράους φαμέν, ὁτὲ δὲ τοὺς χαλεπαίνοντας ἀνδρώδεις ἀποκαλοῦντες. ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μὲν μικρὸν τοῦ εὖ παρεκβαίνων οὐ ψέγεται, οὔτ᾽ ἐπὶ τὸ μᾶλλον οὔτ᾽ ἐπὶ τὸ ἧττον, ὁ δὲ πλέον· οὗτος γὰρ οὐ λανθάνει. ὁ δὲ μέχρι τίνος καὶ ἐπὶ πόσον ψεκτὸς οὐ ῥᾴδιον τῷ λόγῳ ἀφορίσαι· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἄλλο οὐδὲν τῶν αἰσθητῶν· τὰ δὲ τοιαῦτα ἐν τοῖς καθ᾽ ἕκαστα, καὶ ἐν τῇ αἰσθήσει ἡ κρίσις. τὸ μὲν ἄρα τοσοῦτο δηλοῖ ὅτι ἡ μέση ἕξις ἐν πᾶσιν ἐπαινετή, ἀποκλίνειν δὲ δεῖ ὁτὲ μὲν ἐπὶ τὴν ὑπερβολὴν ὁτὲ δ᾽ ἐπὶ τὴν ἔλλειψιν· οὕτω γὰρ ῥᾷστα τοῦ μέσου καὶ τοῦ εὖ τευξόμεθα.

shared as

A gap the length of the shared sentence, which is not in the text.2

Where it comes from

No source for this English sentence was found in Aristotle. It is classified as apocryphal, not as a verified quotation or an established paraphrase of one identifiable passage. The search extended beyond the Nicomachean Ethics: the surviving corpus in Bekker’s Greek Opera, volumes I–II (1831), with the fragments and index in volume V (1870), Rose’s fragment collection (1886), and machine-readable Greek editions of the logical, natural-scientific, ethical and miscellaneous works in First1KGreek and Perseus. English checks included D. P. Chase’s complete Nicomachean Ethics, W. Rhys Roberts’s complete Rhetoric, R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye’s Physics, A. S. L. Farquharson’s Motion of Animals, and Thomas Taylor’s Metaphysics. Searches used the English wording and shorter combinations of knowing oneself and wisdom, Greek forms of know thyself, knowing oneself, wisdom and beginning, and the self-knowledge references in the fragment collection and index. The nineteenth-century scans have poor OCR; these corpus-wide negative searches are not a proof that no conceivable translation could resemble the motto. Detailed scope and limitations are in the research notes. The genuine passage displayed is a related alternative, NOT the source of the popular wording: Nicomachean Ethics II.9, 1109b1–7, on identifying one’s habitual bias and correcting it. Rhetoric II.21, 1395a, explicitly treats know thyself and nothing in excess as sayings already in common circulation; it does not claim that self-knowledge begins all wisdom. Magna Moralia II.15, 1213a, calls knowing oneself difficult and pleasant and describes a friend as a mirror; the work’s authorship is disputed. An important fragment must not be overlooked: Plutarch, Against Colotes 20, 1118C, reports Aristotle as saying that the Delphic inscription gave Socrates the beginning of his inquiry. Rose’s 1886 collection places this testimony as fragment 1 under On Philosophy; the 1878 English version edited by W. W. Goodwin calls the lost work Aristotle’s Platonics. This is a report about Socrates’s inquiry, not the circulating sentence about all wisdom. The English slogan resembles an expansion of the Delphic maxim gnōthi seauton (know thyself), but no documentary chain proving that derivation was established. The oldest dated exact-wording occurrence located here is a blog compilation bearing 7 June 2008 and crediting Aristotle without a work; its date is the live page’s date, not a contemporaneous archived witness. A post dated 7 June 2010 also credits Aristotle. The earliest printed occurrence directly checked in this run is Martha Vickers’s A Nursing Journey, Info Nursing, Fall 2011, p. 16. The absolute earliest printing remains unresolved. Steven Stavropoulos’s The Beginning of All Wisdom was published in 2003, and Mike Keating’s 2016 paper cites p. 47 of the 2008 reissue for a near wording without all, but the book’s quotation page could not be inspected; the title and publication date alone do not establish that this wording was printed in 2003. Sententiae Antiquae explicitly rejects the attribution in 2018. The Wisdom page on Wikiquote currently assigns the motto to the Nicomachean Ethics without a location; comparison with the actual text does not substantiate that assignment.

How it travelled

  1. 7 June 2008Earliest found · credited to AristotleThe oldest dated exact-wording occurrence located in this run is on a motivational compilation bearing 7 June 2008; it credits Aristotle without a work. The live page date is not independently confirmed by a 2008 capture.Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.“Motivational Quotations”, | N | Y | Q |, page dated 7 June 2008. Checked in a full-text transcription. Source
  2. 7 June 2010Spread · credited to AristotleA Have a Better Today post bearing 7 June 2010 uses the exact sentence as its title and opening, followed by Aristotle.Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”, Have a Better Today, 7 June 2010. Checked in a full-text transcription. Source
  3. 2011Spread · credited to AristotleMartha Vickers’s presidential address is printed in Info Nursing with the sentence credited to Aristotle; this is the earliest print occurrence directly checked in this run, not a claim of first publication.Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdomMartha Vickers, “A Nursing Journey: Martha Vickers Reflects on Her Term as President of NANB”, Info Nursing, vol. 42, no. 2, Fall 2011, p. 16. Checked in the text of a page scan, not the image. Source
  4. 23 September 2018Spread · credited to Aristotle (attribution rejected)Sententiae Antiquae lists the sentence among things Aristotle did not say and connects it with the Delphic maxim; it does not supply an early printing or a documented chain of transmission.“Meme Police: A Collection of things Aristotle Did Not Say”, Sententiae Antiquae, 23 September 2018, item 5. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source

In context

The popular motto circulates as an Aristotle quotation, usually without a work, chapter or translator. The authentic passage shown comes from his practical advice on finding the mean between ethical extremes: people have different habitual tendencies, and should recognize their own bias by noticing pleasure and pain, then pull against it. It is offered as a genuine alternative, not as a demonstrated source for the motto.

What it says

The modern motto makes self-knowledge the starting point of wisdom. Aristotle’s related advice is more specific: learn which ethical extreme attracts you, then deliberately correct toward the opposite side.

Often misread

A resemblance to ancient advice does not make this a translation of Aristotle. His citation of the Delphic maxim, the friend-as-mirror discussion in the disputed Magna Moralia, and the fragment concerning Socrates’s inquiry are real evidence of engagement with self-knowledge, but none supplies the circulating sentence.

Use with care

For the Reel, do not present the modern motto as Aristotle’s words. Use the genuine Nicomachean Ethics passage with D. P. Chase’s name, or label the motto “attributed to Aristotle; no source found”. The Delphic relationship is a resemblance, not a proven transmission history.

Use this instead

“We ought also to take into consideration our own natural bias; which varies in each man’s case, and will be ascertained from the pleasure and pain arising in us. Furthermore, we should force ourselves off in the contrary direction, because we shall find ourselves in the mean after we have removed ourselves far from the wrong side, exactly as men do in straightening bent timber.”

Nicomachean Ethics (330 BC), Book II, chapter 9 (1109b1–7).

Topics

Wisdom, Self-knowledge, Education

Related quotes

Sources

Cite it

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” Attributed to Aristotle. No. No source has been found for this sentence in Aristotle. It resembles the Delphic “know thyself”, but its wording and earliest printing remain untraced; related Aristotelian passages are not the same quotation. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/knowing-yourself-is-the-beginning-of-all-wisdom/ (checked 26 October 2026).

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Checked by people

People who checked this entry against its source, under their own names. Their checks do not change the verdict: an editor reviews every entry.

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