Cura te ipsum, "take care of yourself," offers advice prioritizing self-preservation or self-development. In poetry, this phrase suggests both prudent self-interest and the deeper injunction to self-knowledge. Poets invoke it when advocating withdrawal from others' troubles, when insisting on boundaries, or when recognizing that helping others requires first securing one's own foundation. The phrase can express selfishness or wisdom, depending on context. It appears in poems about burnout, codependency, and the limits of responsibility, where speakers recognize they cannot save everyone, that survival or flourishing requires attending to one's own needs, that effective care for others depends on sustainable care for self, that martyrdom helps no one.

Cura te ipsum—take care of yourself—offers advice that can mean different things: prudent self-interest, deeper injunction to self-knowledge (related to Socratic gnothi seauton), or recognition that helping others requires first securing one's own foundation. Poets use the phrase when advocating boundaries, when addressing burnout, when recognizing limits to what individuals can accomplish. Related to debates about altruism versus selfishness, to Buddhist emphasis on self-compassion before compassion for others, and to feminist discussions of care ethics. Useful for understanding poems about exhaustion, martyrdom, and unsustainable demands. The phrase suggests both wisdom (you cannot give what you don't have) and potential selfishness (using self-care as excuse for avoiding responsibility). Contemporary poets increasingly invoke cura te ipsum against cultures that valorize self-sacrifice, insisting that sustainable activism or care requires attending to one's own needs, that running oneself into ground serves no one.