All we can know is that we know nothing. And that’s the height of human wisdom.
Public domain. This passage is in the public domain. Leo Tolstoy died in 1910 and the translator, Louise and Aylmer Maude, died in 1939, more than 70 years ago, and the work was first published in 1869. You can copy, print, read aloud or sell it without asking permission; a credit is kind but not required. The text is copied word for word from the Project Gutenberg edition linked here.
All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages.
This above all: to thine own self be true;And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.
Things do not change; we change.
If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
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