“The significance of that 'absolute commandment', know thyself — whether we look at it in itself or under the historical circumstances of its first utterance — is not to promote mere self-knowledge in respect of the particular capacities, character, propensities, and foibles of the single self. The knowledge it commands means that of man's genuine reality — of what is essentially and ultimately true and real — of spirit as the true and essential being.”

—  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , book Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1816)

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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel photo
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 106
German philosopher 1770–1831

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