Know thyself Know thyself The Ancient Greek aphorism "know thyself" (Greek: , transliterated: '; also ' with the ε contracted), is one of the Delphic maxims and was inscribed in the pronaos (forecourt) of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi according to the Greek writer Pausanias (10.24.1). The phrase was later expounded upon by the philosopher Socrates who taught that: In Latin the phrase, "know thyself," is given as "nosce te ipsum" or "temet nosce". The maxim, or aphorism, "know thyself" has had a variety of meanings attributed to it in literature. According to a proposal by De Lubicz and Lamy (1956),
Latin influence in English tribes, who would later give rise to the English language (the Angles, Saxon and Jutes) traded and fought with the Latin speaking Roman Empire. Many words (some originally from Greek) for common objects therefore entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people via Latin even before the tribes reached Britain (what is known as the Continental or Zero Period): "anchor", "butter", "camp", "cheese", "chest", "cook", "copper", "devil", "dish", "fork", "gem", "inch", "kitchen", "mile", "mill", "mint" (coin), "noon", "pillow", "pound" (unit of weight), "punt" (boat), "sack", "street", "wall", "wine". Cognates of virtually all of these English words exist in the other Germanic