Fake Buddha Quote: “He is able who thinks he is able.”
Seeing a Fake Buddha Quote on Twitter is pretty much a daily occurrence, but this one retweeted by a Buddhist particularly struck me this morning:
He is able who thinks he is able. #Buddha
What interests me about this one is that it’s being passed on by people who have “Buddha” or “Buddhist” as part of their Twitter usernames, and yet it strikes me as being profoundly unBuddhist. I’m always open to correction, but the Buddha didn’t strike me as being an advocate of “positive thinking.” The Buddha’s actual position seemed to be more, it doesn’t matter what you think you are, what is important is what you do.
The Buddha of course encouraged the development of ethically positive thinking, which is thinking free from greed, hatred, and delusion, and imbued with wisdom and compassion. But the idea that you can do something just because you think you can is one he’d have seen as being itself delusional.
In fact when we look around at the world it seems self-evident that it’s full of people who over-estimate their abilities. And this has been well-studied by psychologists. Here’s an article on Why we overestimate our competence, for example.
It’s curious that so many Buddhists promote views as being the words of the Buddha when actually they’re in an idiom that’s completely foreign to actual Buddhist teachings, and when the content is also alien to Buddhist thought and practice. I wonder if a lot of Buddhists aren’t very familiar with actual scriptures, and rely on books about Buddhism. This would explain why so many non-Buddhist sayings are passed off as being the word of the Buddha.
Where does that quote–”He is able who thinks he is able”–actually come from? It’s not actually New Age at all. The earliest uses I’ve been able to find have been from books published in 1965 and 1972, where it’s described as “an ancient Roman saying.” It does have that muscular ring of empire about it! (It’s apparently in a book from 1937 as well, but I can’t view that in Google Books).
16 Responses to “Fake Buddha Quote: “He is able who thinks he is able.””
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You’re currently reading “Fake Buddha Quote: “He is able who thinks he is able.”,” an entry on Bodhipaksa's blog, bodhi tree swaying
Published: Mar 06 2010
I think a lot of people just associate ‘affirming’ with ‘Buddhist’ these days – especially as the more challenging sayings of the Buddha are the least quoted, mysteriously
.
Just today I saw this quote on Twitter myself, and it could very well be the source of yours:
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it will achieve.”
It’s supposedly by that pioneer of the Think and Grow Rich idea, Napoleon Hill.
Yes, and this is from Nate over at Precious Metal: “A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden.” – Buddha
I can’t say for sure that it isn’t the Buddha, but pretty sure
I appreciate you’re grabbing these and discussing them; perhaps a good topic for further/wider discussion at some point. For instance, is this just a continuation of the Mahayana’s ‘stretching’ of Buddhavacana?
And don’t forget to get your t-shirt:
http://www.zazzle.com/medicine_buddha_7_he_is_able_who_thinks_he_is_tshirt-235002552984351959
Interesting post. There are a ton of quotes that are not the Buddha. I think the construction sometimes gives them away.
I’m not so sure the Buddha exclusively emphasized what we do. In fact, how we shape our volitional thinking, or intention, determines the outcome of our actions, positive or negative. Although it does not come packed as a motivational aphorism, it does point to “intention” and how it informs actions:
“It is the virtuous or unvirtuous intention that makes the difference,
Not the extent of the physical manifestation of virtue or vice.”
—The Buddha, The Essence of Merit Sutra
Some of it’s just down to typos, of course – like the bit where the Buddha exhorts us to rein in unskilful responses to double-glazing salesmen: “Those who think such thoughts as: he beat me, he robbed me, he insulated me…”
Seriously, there’s a new meme out there on facebook etc. of attributing any damn quote you like to Gandhi, so I think you’re swimming upstream here – people are going to attribute whatever to whomever, as the mood takes them.
@Apuleius Platonicus: Ah, and complete with culturally inappropriate gothic script to make it look more biblical. Sweet.
@Sean Yes, “How we shape our volitional thinking, or intention, determines the outcome of our actions, positive or negative.” But merely thinking one is able does not make one able. If the thinking is divorced from the reality of one’s actual capabilities, then we have a volitional act (of thought) that’s imbued with delusion. Of course there are times when we need confidence, and telling ourselves we can do something that we can actually do will help in those situations, but no amount of positive self-talk will magically transform us or our abilities.
@Padmavyuha: And as the Buddha said to the heating engineer, “Cease to do evil, learn to do good, purify the heat.”
“I never said that.”
The Buddha
Smacks of Stoicism, but I don’t think of it as being particularly anti-Buddhist, it just doesn’t have the same scope as something the Buddha would’ve said in regards to ‘thought.’
We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world
–Dhammapada
Hi Justin,
“A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another…” Man, that’s an astonishingly bad one, but it is indeed attributed by many books and websites to the Buddha. It seems to originate in a 1977 book, “The Teaching of Buddha,” by Bukkyoo Dendoo Kyookai. It’s only available in snippet view in Google Books, but I assume that the words are Kyookai’s (assuming that’s his last name) and that after the 1987 book, “Children and Nonviolence” used it as a chapter epigraph attributed to “The Teachings (sic) of Buddha,” people took that to mean it was the word of the Buddha. And thus is spawned a particularly egregious Fake Buddha Quote.
I love your Fake Buddha Quote blogs! Keep up the good work!
As a follow-up to your response to Justin (March 7, 2010):
““A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another…” Man, that’s an astonishingly bad one, but it is indeed attributed by many books and websites to the Buddha. It seems to originate in a 1977 book, “The Teaching of Buddha,” by Bukkyoo Dendoo Kyookai.”
If you check out http://www.bdkamerica.org/ you will find that the Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai (BDK) was founded by the Reverend Dr. Yehan Numata in December 1965. Dr. Numata was a successful manufacturer and a major Buddhist benefactor who was educated in the US. Their website says: “Working with a community of like-minded people, including leaders of each Buddhist sect in Japan and eminent Buddhist scholars, Dr. Numata established the BDK in order to “to transmit the Buddhist religion to as many people in the world as possible, without expounding the doctrines of any particular sect or denomination.”"
Apparently the original Latin reads “Potest qui vult,” which is he who wills, is able. That’s entirely different from “He is able who thinks he is able.”
Thanks for looking that up, Bodhipaksa. I do think I’ll do a post at Progressive Buddhism about the whole phenomenon of fake quotes… it seems to be becoming an industry in itself.
Did you catch the video I posted yesterday — the Facebook Buddha Quote one? It’s good that even some non-Buddhists recognize the utter vapidity of some of the quotes attributed to the Buddha.
[...] He is able who thinks he is able. #Buddha (from here) [...]
If anyone says,
that the Tathagata sets forth a Teaching,
he really slanders Buddha
and is unable to explain what I teach.
As to any Truth-declaring system,
Truth is undeclarable.
- Buddha
To be attached to a certain view
and to look down upon others’ views as inferior,
this the wise men call a fetter.
- Buddha
One may desire a spurious respect and precedence
among one’s fellow monks,
and the veneration of outsiders,
This is a fool’s way of thinking.
- Buddha
“O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim
For preacher and monk the honored name!
For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.
Such folk see only one side of a thing.”
- Buddha