Our education, our environment, our whole culture insists that we must become something. Our philosophies, our religions and sacred books all say the same thing. But now I see that the very process of becoming something implies envy, which means that I am not satisfied with being what I am; and I want to understand what I am, I want to find out why I am always comparing myself with another, trying to become something; and in understanding what I am there is no need for discipline. In the process of that understanding, integration comes into being. The contradiction in me yields to the understanding of myself, and this in turn brings an action which is integral, whole.
—Jiddu Krishnamurti in Think on These Things
One's eyes are what one is, one's mouth is what one becomes.
—John Galsworthy
What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization.
—Abraham Maslow
What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.
—Thomas Carlyle
Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.
—William James
Failure is when you talk yourself out of becoming something amazing.
—Rudy Francisco
For all things come from earth, and all things end by becoming earth.
—Xenophanes
…you are meant to grow into a true human being. Right now you are to a human being what an acorn is to an oak tree. A good start, that's all. You've got a long way to go, baby, and you're not going to grow into your full potential sitting in front of the laptop, bag of Cool Ranch Doritos in one hand, dick in the other, anime porn boring a hole in your corneas and consciousness. Just a thought.
—Shozan Jack Haubner in Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk
You remember your first love because they show you, prove to you, that you can love and be loved, that nothing in this world is deserved except for love, that love is both how you become a person, and why.
—John Green in Turtles All the Way Down
I was mortified by the prospect of becoming hopelessly trapped in someone else's story.
—Lionel Shriver in We Need to Talk About Kevin