All may know themselves
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ἀνθρώποισι πᾶσι μέτεστι γινώσκειν ἑωυτοὺς καὶ σωφρονεῖν
To all human beings it belongs to know themselves and to be sound-minded.
Preserved by Stobaeus, beside B112 and B113. Heraclitus universalizes the two Delphic imperatives — know yourself, be sound-minded — as a share (μέτεστι) belonging to every human being.
'To all human beings it belongs to know themselves and to be sound-minded.' Heraclitus takes the two commands carved at Delphi — <em>gnōthi sauton</em>, know yourself, and the <em>sōphrosynē</em> the god demanded — and universalizes them: the share (<em>metesti</em>) is everyone's. As with B113, the gift is common; the failure to use it is what he keeps recording.
Self-knowledge is not, for Heraclitus, mere introspection. Elsewhere he says 'I searched myself' (B101), and the soul he searches has a Logos with no findable limit (B45). So knowing oneself opens onto the common Logos rather than closing on a private ego — the self, rightly examined, is where the shared measure is met. <em>Sōphronein</em>, to have a 'safe mind,' is its companion: the drunk man of B117, his soul gone moist, has lost exactly this soundness. To know yourself and to keep your mind whole and dry are one capacity, and it is handed to all.
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