Eternity Today

Safron--Mark Rothko

It’s revealed once more.
What? Eternity.
It’s the sea mixed
With the sun.

— Rimbaud

Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Polonius:
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.
Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!

Laertes:
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78–82

"To thine own self be true" is Polonius's last piece of advice to his son Laertes, who is in a hurry to get on the next boat to Paris, where he'll be safe from his father's long-winded speeches.

Doesn't Polonius have something more in mind than just the New Age self-knowledge that the phrase now suggests? As Polonius saw it, borrowing money, loaning money, carousing with women of dubious character, and other intemperate pursuits are "false" to the self. It seems that Polonius means by "false" something disadvantageous" or "detrimental to one's image"; by "true" he means "loyal to one's own best interests." Take care of yourself first, he counsels, and that way you'll be in a position to take care of others. There is wisdom in the old man's warnings, of course; but he repeats orthodox platitudes with unwonted self-satisfaction. Polonius, who is deeply impressed with his wordliness, has perfected the arts of protecting his interests and of projecting seeming virtues, his method of being "true" to others. Never mind that this includes spying on Hamlet for King Claudius. Never mind, as well, that many of Polonius's haughty, if not trite, kernels of wisdom are now taken as Shakespeare's own wise pronouncements on living a proper life.