In Hamlet - who says the line 'to thine own self be true' and what is the context/meaning of it? Thanks

Polonius - it's rather ironic: He is telling his son Laertes to be honest, while all the time being up to no good himself. The old fool comes a cropper (stabbed in the arras) when he is earwigging behind a curtain.

Polonius gives this famous advice and homily to his son Laertes. He means do not lie to yourself or lie to others about your true desires, interests, point of view of view and so on.

It sounds good, but Hamlet's soliloquies raise the question of how true to the self one can be. Can the self can ever know itself? If an uninvolved, unconcerned actor can go into conniptions about Hecuba--all in a play--yet Hamlet, feeling as deeply as he does about the murder of his father and wishing to act upon that knowledge, cannot be effectual although he has real cause, is it possible true as Polonius proposes? Moreover, of what does the self consist? The outward show or the inward person? In his first interchange with Gertrude Hamlet asks that question. And the truer he is to his deeper feelings, confusions, questions, and doubts, the falser Hamlet is in his actions with others and the less clear it is what he should be true to.

It is also curious that Polonius should say this yet then send Reynaldo to spy on Laertes, to see what Laertes does in Paris--gamble, whore about, and so on. That action also suggests that being true to the self and being true with others isn't the one-to-one evident correspondence Polonius thinks it is. The world and human beings in it are more complicated.

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In Hamlet - who says the line 'to thine own self be true' and what is the context/meaning of it? Thanks

Polonius, father of Laertes, while he offers his son some life advice.

A modern rendition might be "Don't delude yourself"

Not sure who said it, but it means be true to yourself.

Polonius said it and it means "do not lie."