Cervantes Notebook

Strive to know yourself, for it is the most difficult lesson in the world." - Cervantes

From the extraordinary Don Quixote. 

The maxim "know thyself" dates back to ancient Greece, inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. In its simplest form, the thought has been ascribed to Aeschylus, Socrates, Plato, Hobbes, Benjamin Franklin, Emerson, and more recently, it was inscribed over the Oracle's door in The Matrix movies. 

What we love about Cervantes' version is his focus on knowing yourself as a practical, lifelong task rather than some vaguely blissed-out spiritual state.

We wanted to capture the challenge of a mind reflecting on itself in order to improve itself. In our illustration, a pair of hands piece together a puzzle of which they are a part.

• Pocket sized: 3.5 x 5 inches
• Proudly made in Portland Oregon
• Offset printed with vegetable-based inks
• Cover: 18pt recycled chipboard made from recycled content & books
• Inside: 32 college ruled pages, uncoated 70# paper milled in America
• 85% post-consumer recycled content and 15% pre-consumer recycled content.
• Saddle stitched with matching staples
• All presses and production machinery powered with renewable energy