Institutes in a Nutshell:

What follows is from the introduction to the Institutes, introduced by Caspar Olevianus (or, as it is in this edition of the Institutes: Gaspar Olevian):

Such is the arrangement of the Institutes which may be thus summed up: Man being at first created upright, but afterwards being not partially but totally ruined, finds his entire salvation out of himself in Christ, to whom being united by the Holy Spirit freely given without any foresight of future works, he thereby obtains a double blessing—viz. full imputation of righteousness, which goes along with us even to the grave, and the commencement of sanctification, which daily advances till at length it is perfected in the day of regeneration or resurrection of the body, and this, in order that the great mercy of God may be celebrated in the heavenly mansions, throughout eternity.

Here we have supplied for us a basic outline and summary of what Calvin goes through in this major work of his: Creation--Fall--Redemption--Recreation, all by God's grace and his glory.

Book 1, Chapter 1: THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND OF OURSELVES MUTUALLY CONNECTED.—NATURE OF THE CONNECTION.

Here is the opening sentence of the body of The Institutes, in which Calvin shows where he is going:

OUR wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.

In this first section, Calvin will deal with how these two aspects of our wisdom are connected. In short, what Calvin says is that the more we truly know ourselves, the more we will search out God because in our sin and depravity, we are far from sufficient unto ourselves. BUT we cannot have any real knowledge of ourselves unless we have some knowledge of our Creator: God. In our pride we think of ourselves as excellent and worthy, and so we need to see ourselves in a proper light. Calvin uses a great illustration here:

Nay, the bodily sense may furnish a still stronger illustration of the extent to which we are deluded in estimating the powers of the mind. If, at mid-day, we either look down to the ground, or on the surrounding objects which lie open to our view, we think ourselves endued with a very strong and piercing eyesight; but when we look up to the sun, and gaze at it unveiled, the sight which did excellently well for the earth is instantly so dazzled and confounded by the refulgence, as to oblige us to confess that our acuteness in discerning terrestrial objects is mere dimness when applied to the sun.

This happens spiritually too, in a way that is similar to Plato's analogy of the Cave, and the blinding qualities of true wisdom/knowledge. And this is why, for Calvin, those in scripture who saw God or some of his glory, were in great fear for their lives--God's glory is so great that not even the sun compares to its brilliance and clarity.