Editing Self-reflection (section)

===Renaissance===
{{See also|Renaissance humanism}}
A famous quote of [[Shakespeare]]'s [[Hamlet]] (II, ii, 115–117), expresses the contrast of human physical beauty, intellectual faculty, and ephemeral nature:
{{Blockquote|What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?}}

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[[René Descartes]] famously and succinctly proposed: ''[[Cogito ergo sum]]''<ref>Descartes, René; ''[[Principles of Philosophy|Principia Philosophiae]]'' (1644), Part 1, article 7: "''Ac proinde hæc cognitio, ego cogito, ergo sum, est omnium prima & certissima, quæ cuilibet ordine philosophanti occurrat.''"</ref> (French: "''Je pense donc je suis''"; English: "I think, therefore I am"), not an assessment of humanity, but certainly reflecting a capacity for reasoning as a characteristic of humans, that potentially, could include individual self-reflection.