Regardless of its author, this is a remarkably powerful quote.
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
– Unknown *
* – This quote is widely attributed to “Frank Outlaw” on the Web, but no actual other corroborating confirmation actually confirms that this is the correct source. Fact is that there is no such person as Frank Outlaw.
– We have also seen it wrongly attributed to James Dean, Mahatma Gandhi and Lao Tzu.
– Note that popular quotation books – including Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (17th ed., 2002), Roget’s International Thesaurus of Quotations (1970) and The Harper Book of Quotations (3rd ed., 1993) – DO NOT include this quote or any reference to Frank Outlaw.
– In July 2003, a woman named “Elizabeth C.,” claimed to have written it in 1998 and sending to members of an e-mail group of people living with lupus. According to legend, her words were: “these few lines have since taken on a life of their own via the Internet. I was honored when someone asked if they could post it on their work bulletin board. From there it ended up as a desktop theme. It has traveled everywhere.”
– We have also uncovered a claim that this quote is found in Thai, attributed to a famous Thai monk Achann Chaa of Wat Po Pong (1918-1992). Many of his sayings were known abroad during 1960s and 1970s.
