Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
Aristotle (384–322 BC) was Plato's student and Alexander the Great's tutor, and founded the Lyceum in Athens. His work spans logic, biology, ethics, politics, rhetoric and poetics — effectively the whole of the knowledge available to him. The Nicomachean Ethics, where he develops virtue as a mean between extremes, is still read as a living text.
About this theme: Wisdom
In the Western tradition wisdom is almost always defined by what it is not. Socrates is famous for claiming to know that he knew nothing; that was not modesty but method. Knowledge is a set of facts, wisdom is knowing what to do with them — and, more often, knowing when there are not enough of them.
More by Aristotle
More on Wisdom
- Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small.— Lao Tzu
- An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.— Benjamin Franklin
- Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.— Arthur Schopenhauer
- He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.— Lao Tzu
- Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.— Baruch Spinoza