Become what you are: a philosophical lifestyle

Abstract

In this essay, I try to answer these questions: how did Nietzsche assimilate the sentence of the Greek poet Pindar, “Become what you are”? How did he turn the poet's verse into an emblem of his own philosophy? I follow Nietzsche’s life trajectory and seek to extract from the biography the decisive moments in which the philosopher returns to himself, aiming to transform his way of thinking and living. It was from the reflection on the lived and the understanding of philosophy as a way of life, as practiced by the ancient Greeks, that Nietzsche renewed the meaning of the sentence and transformed it into a rule of conduct, an ethical principle for self-transformation.