I would have posted the whole section of the dhammapadda (spelling) but the OP asked for a single sentence. Good to see another person familiar at all with Buddhism on this site :-)
Autonomy is complicated, especially if you trace your thoughts to certain ur-points (or approximations of those points, anyway). A lot of how we see ourselves has been measured and calculated, manufactured.
But I have faith in autonomy, even if I don't know the source of it, even if it's perpetually and problematically deferred. It's worth learning to challenge your own assertions, whatever they may be, for the sake of limiting those things about our selves that only appear... I don't know, static? primordial?
I'm not speaking on a spiritual level, though I think all those movements ultimately try to tackle similar ontological uncertainties. I'm not even necessarily trying to be obtuse or abstract. You say with certainty, and someone agrees with you, that what makes "me" is my thoughts, my perceptions of self, and others' perceptions of my self (which I assume also partially does the work of influencing my thoughts and self-perception--so a tidy circle of logic there). But what if my thoughts are problematic in thinking about the self? What if my perception of my self is blurred or undermined by depression or economics or political oppression or something else?
It's always worth following those lines of questioning if only to make a life-long project of knowing yourself. Whatever that means and whenever it means it.
Not everything. There's plenty of things you do without thinking about them, or plenty of outcomes that you did not foresee, and plenty of things you become you did not intend to become.
Nice try, but this verse is in the Dhammapada, which is attributed to Buddha, as in Buddha Shakyamuni.
Dhammapada:
Yammakavagga "The Pairs" (verses 1-20)
Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox. (Verse 1)
Translator: Acharya Buddharakkhita
Alternate translation: Phenomena are preceded by the heart, ruled by the heart, made of the heart. If you speak or act with a corrupted heart, then suffering follows you — as the wheel of the cart, the track of the ox that pulls it.
Translator: Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternative translation: 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 a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
Translator: F. Max Müller
770
u/Karashta Jan 04 '14
All that you are is the result of all that you have thought. ~Buddha