Who really said it

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world

Q: Did Gautama Buddha say "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world"?

No. These exact words open Thomas Byrom's 1976 verse translation of the Dhammapada, an ancient Buddhist anthology traditionally ascribed to the Buddha. But the wording is Byrom's own loose rendering: the Pali original (Manopubbaṅgamā dhammā…) says mind precedes and shapes our mental states — it never mentions 'thoughts' or making 'the world.' Pali scholars treat Byrom's version as a poetic mistranslation, so this is not a documented saying of the Buddha.

Not the Buddha’s words — Thomas Byrom’s 1976 rendering Thomas Byrom English literary scholar & translator · died 1991

Disputed In copyright

These exact words open Thomas Byrom’s 1976 verse translation of the Dhammapada, an ancient Buddhist anthology traditionally ascribed to the Buddha. But the wording is Byrom’s own loose rendering: the Pali original (Manopubbaṅgamā dhammā…) says mind precedes and shapes our mental states — it never mentions ‘thoughts’ or making ‘the world.’ Pali scholars treat Byrom’s version as a poetic mistranslation, so this is not a documented saying of the Buddha.

Last verified 14 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world” Thomas Byrom, trans., The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha (1976) — a loose rendering of the text's opening, not the Buddha's documented words

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Gautama Buddha. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Estate of Thomas Byrom; Alfred A. Knopf / Penguin Random House and Shambhala Publications). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

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Provenance

The line traced to its actual source

Work: The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha
Translation: Thomas Byrom, first published 1976 (Alfred A. Knopf / Wildwood House; foreword by Ram Dass)
Passage: The opening lines (verses 1–2)
Original: Pali — “Manopubbaṅgamā dhammā manoseṭṭhā manomayā”

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. Not a faithful translation

Byrom’s rendering continues into the familiar “Speak or act with an impure mind / And trouble will follow you” couplet. More literal translations read very differently — Buddharakkhita: “Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought,” and Gil Fronsdal: “All experience is preceded by mind, / Led by mind, / Made by mind.” Neither speaks of making ‘the world.’

Byrom’s Dhammapada, scanned at the Internet Archive

How we verified this

Buddhist teacher Bodhipaksa (Fake Buddha Quotes) traces the wording to Thomas Byrom’s translation ↗ and argues it “Hinduizes” a text that in Pali mentions neither ‘thoughts’ nor ‘the world.’
Quote Investigator ↗ quotes the passage as Byrom’s Dhammapada rendering and finds recent, unsupported reassignments to Emerson (c. 2009) and Lao Tzu (c. 2010).
Tricycle: The Buddhist Review ↗ published the same critique, recommending Fronsdal’s more faithful translation over Byrom’s.
Byrom (d. 1991), an Oxford- and Harvard-trained literary scholar and Advaita Vedanta practitioner, also translated the Hindu Ashtavakra Gita as The Heart of Awareness.

In copyright

The ancient Pali Dhammapada is long in the public domain, but this specific English wording is Thomas Byrom’s creative translation, first published in 1976. A 1976 translation by an identifiable translator is in copyright in the United States; the rights rest with Byrom’s estate and his publishers.

Fact-check

How this became a ‘Buddha’ quote

The line is real — it opens a genuine translation of a genuine Buddhist scripture — but the leap from “the Dhammapada’s opening” to “the Buddha said, word for word” papers over a translator’s heavy hand.

Gautama Buddha (verbatim) Mistranslation

The Dhammapada is traditionally ascribed to the Buddha, but this English phrasing is Thomas Byrom’s. Bodhipaksa notes the Pali says mind precedes and shapes our mental states and “mentions neither ‘thoughts’ nor ‘the world,’” so “with our thoughts we make the world” is Byrom’s interpolation (Fake Buddha Quotes ↗).

Ralph Waldo Emerson No support

Quote Investigator finds the Emerson tag “apparently occurred in recent times” — e.g. a 2009 book — with no substantive backing (QI ↗).

Lao Tzu No support

Likewise recent and unsupported; the earliest instance QI documents is a 2010 Goodreads entry (QI ↗).

It is the opening of the Dhammapada as rendered by Thomas Byrom in 1976 — a lyrical but much-criticized paraphrase, not a faithful transcript of the Buddha’s words (Tricycle ↗).

Context

Why the wording matters

The dispute here isn’t whether a wise text exists — it does. It’s that Byrom’s poetry quietly converts a psychological teaching into a metaphysical one. The Pali says the quality of your mind shapes whether your experience is suffering or joy; Byrom’s “with our thoughts we make the world” sounds instead like the mind literally manufactures external reality — a claim closer to Advaita Vedanta than to early Buddhism.

That shift is why the line thrives in law-of-attraction and self-help circles while Buddhist scholars wince at it. The idea traces to the Buddhist tradition; the memorable slogan traces to one translator in 1976.

A psychological teaching became a metaphysical slogan — in translation.

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More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

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Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

“We are what we think” — Fake Buddha Quotesfakebuddhaquotes.com

Bodhipaksa’s detailed analysis: the wording is Byrom’s, and it distorts the Pali original.

Watch Your Thoughts — Quote Investigatorquoteinvestigator.com

Identifies the passage as Byrom’s Dhammapada and debunks Emerson / Lao Tzu reassignments.

We Are What We Think — Tricycletricycle.org

Buddhist review essay critiquing Byrom’s rendering and favoring Fronsdal’s translation.

Byrom’s Dhammapada (1976 scan)archive.org

Full scanned text of Thomas Byrom’s translation containing the exact wording.

Dhammapada, tr. Buddharakkhitaaccesstoinsight.org

A faithful scholarly translation of the opening verses for comparison.

Dhammapada — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Background on the text, its dating, and its major English translations.

The translator behind the words

Who actually wrote this line

Thomas Byrom

d. 1991 · English literary scholar & verse translator of the Dhammapada

Thomas Byrom was an English literary scholar educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and Harvard, where he taught history and literature. A practitioner of Advaita Vedanta who later lived and taught at Kashi Ashram in Florida, he also rendered the Hindu Ashtavakra Gita into English as The Heart of Awareness. His 1976 verse Dhammapada (with a foreword by Ram Dass) is loved for its lyricism but faulted by Pali scholars for reading nondual Hindu ideas into a Buddhist text.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Thomas Byrom, trans., The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976), opening verses (1–2).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world’?” Last verified 14 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/we-are-what-we-think-all-that-we-are-arises-with-our