What are quotes or proverbs that mean "You become what you pursue"

July 27, 2013 11:09 PM

What are some quotes that mean, more or less, "That which you hunt (or battle, or focus on, or think about), you become"? Like Nietzsche's quote: "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you." or, even "You are what you eat." If you want to give me slightly modified phrases, that would be great too. For instance, changing "You are what you eat" to "You are what you seek."
posted by visual mechanic to Writing & Language (23 answers total)

Best answer: Kurt Vonnegut: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
posted by Pryde at 11:39 PM on July 27, 2013 [7 favorites]

Best answer: Jesus Christ: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be."
Mt 6:19-21
posted by helloimjohnnycash at 2:10 AM on July 28, 2013 [2 favorites]

Best answer: "I have become what I beheld", from David Mamet's script for The Untouchables. (Spoken by Eliot Ness, when he feels that he has had to abandon his principles to achieve the pragmatic goal of getting Capone behind bars.) I'm not sure whether he was rephrasing an older quotation -- from googling it seems that at least that particular form of words originated with Mamet.
posted by pont at 2:26 AM on July 28, 2013

Best answer: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
-Will Durant, summary of Aristotle
posted by colfax at 2:43 AM on July 28, 2013 [2 favorites]

This page explores the source and history of a number of those type of quotes, which have been actually said by, and also misattributed to, many wise people.
posted by Cygnet at 3:59 AM on July 28, 2013

"Fake it until you make it."
posted by mono blanco at 4:05 AM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words.
Be careful of your words, for your words become your actions.
Be careful of your actions, for your actions become your habits.
Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character.
Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny."
posted by MuffinMan at 4:29 AM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: "Do not be deceived: Bad company ruins good morals." - 1 Corinthians 15:33 (ESV)


"There is a battle of two wolves inside us all.

One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, lies, inferiority and ego.

The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy and truth.

Which wolf wins? The one you feed." - Cherokee proverb


"The mind is everything. What you think about, you become." - Buddha


"You become what you think about all day long." ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us." - Hermann Hesse, Demian

"The iron hand crush'd the Tyrant's head
And became a Tyrant in his stead." - William Blake, "The Grey Monk."
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 4:58 AM on July 28, 2013 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness. If a monk keeps pursuing thinking imbued with sensuality, abandoning thinking imbued with renunciation, his mind is bent by that thinking imbued with sensuality. If a monk keeps pursuing thinking imbued with ill will, abandoning thinking imbued with non-ill will, his mind is bent by that thinking imbued with ill will. If a monk keeps pursuing thinking imbued with harmfulness, abandoning thinking imbued with harmlessness, his mind is bent by that thinking imbued with harmfulness.
Buddha, Dvedhavitakka Sutra

We become what we think about
Earl Nightengale, The Strangest Secret

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
Napolean Hill, Think and Grow Rich
posted by curtm at 6:10 AM on July 28, 2013

That famous commencement address by David Foster Wallace hits some of the same points, though it doesn't really lend itself to short snappy quotations.
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 6:13 AM on July 28, 2013

Best answer: I am a part of all that I have met -- Tennyson, Ulysses.
posted by coppermoss at 6:33 AM on July 28, 2013

Best answer: You reap what you sow.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:51 AM on July 28, 2013

"The mind is the builder."

"Thoughts are things."

Both are from Edgar Cayce.
posted by Michele in California at 8:22 AM on July 28, 2013

Best answer: Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.
posted by mule98J at 9:15 AM on July 28, 2013 [2 favorites]

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.

If a man speaks or acts with pure thoughts, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.

Buddha
posted by redindiaink at 9:19 AM on July 28, 2013

The last lines of the most recent Star Trek movie start with this: "There will always be those who mean to do us harm. To stop them, we risk awakening the same evil within ourselves."
posted by soelo at 10:01 AM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

Zen teacher Cheri Huber has a book titled That which you are seeking is causing you to seek.
posted by Lexica at 10:49 AM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

Whatever you feed will grow.
posted by Corvid at 12:00 PM on July 28, 2013

The abused become the abuser.
posted by lalochezia at 2:15 PM on July 28, 2013

Another one:
"Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity" -St. Augustine
posted by helloimjohnnycash at 5:16 PM on July 28, 2013

"...to hope, til Hope creates / From its own wreck the thing it contemplates" -Percy Bysshe Shelley (from the end of Prometheus Unbound)
posted by désoeuvrée at 6:12 PM on July 28, 2013

The St Augustine quote made me think of this one:

Abeunt studia in mores (practices zealously pursued pass into habit).
posted by redindiaink at 1:17 PM on July 29, 2013

I don't know if this is exactly what you're looking for, but there's Pogo's famous quote: We have met the enemy and he is us.
posted by kbar1 at 11:55 PM on July 29, 2013