“You are what you eat” (among other things)…

THE FAMOUS ORIGINAL QUOTE: “You Are What You Eat”                     Dr. Victor Hugo Lindlahr (1895-1969)        Pioneering American health food advocate        The title of his popular and influential book, first published in 1942, which promotes the idea that eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables (a “Catabolic Diet” by Lindlahr) is the key to good health.        Lindlahr is generally credited with popularizing the phrase, though as noted on the great Phrase Finder site, versions had been floating around as far back as the early 1800s French food gourmet Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826) included the aphorism “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are” in his 1825 book The Physiology of Taste. German philosopher Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804-1872) said in an 1863 essay “A man is what he eats.”         “You are what you eat” was picked up and recycled by many nutritionists and food writers in the 1950s. In the 1960s, it gained new popularity as a slogan used by organic food advocates, further popularized by the 1968 semi-documentary music/comedy film You Are What You Eat, which features musicians Peter Yarrow, Barry McGuire, Tiny Tim, Paul Butterfield and lots of Hippies.

THE DONALD TRUMP PRINCIPLE: “You are what you think you are…Oftentimes, perception is more important than fact.”                      Donald Trump        Former businessman turned politician; elected the 45th President of the United States in November 2016        A comment Trump made in book Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life (originally published in 2007)        I suspect many people would likely agree that The Donald has adhered to this belief throughout his business and political career.

THE SOCIAL MEDIA PRINCIPLE: “You are what you post.”                      An aphorism about social media posts on the internet – made by more than 800,000 posts on the internet.

ZAPPA’S VARIATION: “You are what you is You is what you am A cow don’t make ham... You are what you is An’ that’s all it ‘tis.”        Frank Zappa        American musician, filmmaker and entrepreneur        Lyrics from the title song of Zappa's 1981 double album You Are What You Is

THE FASHION ETHICS UPDATE: “You are what you wear. Today, it’s becoming more and more important to choose your apparel consciously and to make sustainable fashion choices.”                     Farla Efros        President of retail strategic firm HRC Advisory, which advises corporations on ethical operating practices        Quoted in a 2016 HuffingtonPost article about “fair trade” fashion wear

BURKE’S LAW: “You are what you know.”                      James Burke        British science historian, documentary producer and author        In his excellent book The Day the Universe Changed (1985)

THE CRITTERS COUNTERQUOTE: “You are what they eat.”                      Advertising slogan for the movie Critters 3 (1991), one of Leonardo DiCaprio’s early films

BUDDHA’S DEEP THOUGHT: “We are what we think.”                      Buddha (563-483 B.C.)        Indian spiritual teacher whose teachings are the foundation of the Buddhist religion        This is the popular English translation of the opening words of Verse 1 of The Dhammapada, as translated by Thomas Byrom in the mid-1970s. Although Byrom’s version has been widely read and quoted, it’s a loose, creative translation that has been criticized as inaccurate by some Buddhist scholars. Another alternate, somewhat more literal translation of the line is: “All things have the nature of mind.”

WEEKLY WORLD NEWS REINCARNATION VARIATION: “You are what you were. Expert reveals how past lives control everything you do – TODAY!”                      Headlines from a story on page 15 of the November 6, 2001 issue of the Weekly World News        I still miss the print version of WWN, but I’m glad there’s an online version now.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading, listening and viewing…

“I think, therefore I am” — and some variations I think are funny (therefore they are)…

FAMOUS PHILOSOPHER’S QUOTE: “Cogito ergo sum.” (“I think, therefore I am.”)        René Descartes (1596-1650)        French mathematician and philosopher          Famous axiom in his book Principia Philosophiae (Principles of Philosophy, 1644)        Descartes first recorded the axiom in French, as “Je pense, donc je suis,” in his philosophical and mathematical treatise, Le Discours de la Méthode (A Discourse on Method, 1637). However, the Latin version from Principia Philosophiae — “Cogito ergo sum” — is better known.        The French and Latin versions of the quote have traditionally been translated in English as “I think, therefore I am.”        Alternate translations include “I am thinking, therefore I am” and “I am thinking, therefore I exist.”

THE PRESIDENT TRUMP TWEET THEORY VARIATION: “He tweets, therefore he is. Twitter gives him a platform to say whatever he wants completely unfiltered. The media can’t and won’t do that for him.”        John Feehery        Republican political consultant        Quoted in an article media writer James Warren posted on the Vanity Fair website on December 6, 2016        (Cartoon by Kim Warp.)

A FAMOUS HUNTER’S VARIATION: “We eat, therefore we hunt.”        Sarah Palin        Conservative American politician, celebrity and avid hunter         This comes from the rambling speech Palin gave on July 26, 2009, announcing her resignation as Governor of Alaska. The full quote is: “Stand strong, and remind them patriots will protect our guaranteed, individual right to bear arms, and by the way, Hollywood needs to know, we eat, therefore we hunt.”

AN AVANT-GARDE PAINTER’S VARIATION: “I Suck Therefore I Am”         Agus Suwage          Indonesian artist        This is the title of the 2004 painting by Suwage shown at left. At the time, it was estimated to be worth up to 207,000 Malaysian Ringgits (over $61,975 in U.S. currency). Other works by Suwage have sold for even more, so I guess some people don’t think he sucks.

THE SHOPAHOLIC VARIATION: “I Shop Therefore I Am”        Barbara Kruger        American multimedia artist          These words on the artwork by Kruger shown at left are seemingly a send-up of consumerism. But ironically, the image was later used on tote bags and t-shirts sold by Bloomingdale’s.

THE ALCOHOLIC TEACHER VARIATION: “I Teach Therefore I Drink”          A slogan on t-shirts sold on Amazon and other sites. They seem to be quite popular. I’m not sure what that says about the teaching profession.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Comments? Questions? Corrections? Post them on my Famous Quotations Facebook group.

Some books with a title or subtitle based on Descartes’ quote (there are even more)…

“Nothing is certain except death and taxes.” (Or, as Franklin actually said: “Il n’y a rien d’assure que la mort et les impôts.”

THE FAMOUS WORDS FRANKLIN DIDN’T SAY (IN ENGLISH): “Nothing is certain except death and taxes.”        Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)         American “founding father,” publisher, diplomat and scientist         This is the usual English translation of a comment Franklin made in a letter he wrote to French scientist Jean-Baptiste Leroy, dated November 13, 1789.        Franklin wrote his letter to Leroy in French. His “death and taxes” remark was related to the Constitution of the United States of America, which had been adopted two years earlier. What he actually wrote was:        “Notre constitution nouvelle est actuellement établie, tout paraît nous promettre qu’elle sera durable; mais, dans ce monde, il n’y a rien d’assure que la mort et les impôts.”        The common English translation of this sentence is: “Our new Constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable; but, in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.”  (Sometimes the last part is translated as “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.”)        As noted by the invaluable Phrase Finder site and other reference sources, similar quotations about death and taxes pre-date Franklin’s letter. But the English translation of Franklin’s version is certainly the most famous. (For more background see this post on my ThisDayinQuotes.com blog.)

THE DONALD TRUMP UPDATE: “With Donald Trump as President almost nothing is certain except uncertainty itself.”        David C. Kibbe        President and CEO of the non-profit healthcare information technology organization DirectTrust         A remark quoted in a January 9, 2017 press release discussing health industry IT trends that seems applicable to more than health industry IT trends.        (Cartoon by Dan Wasserman.)

THE UNCERTAIN WILL ROGERS QUOTE:   “The difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.”        Attrib. to Will Rogers (1879-1935)        American humorist        A quip widely attributed to Rogers, but without any specific source        There’s no contemporary record of Rogers uttering or writing this old joke. However, quote maven Barry Popik has noted that a similar line was used by another humorist Rogers had a connection with, the witty newspaper columnist Robert Quillen (1887-1948).        In several of the humorous columns Quillen wrote in the early 1930s, he said the “difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time the legislature meets.” In a 1934 column, Quillen added Congress, saying: “The main difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get any worse every time congress or the state legislature meets.” That same year, movie producer George Marshall and screenwriter Lamar Trotti visited Quillen and purportedly used him as the model for the newspaper editor Will Rogers played in the film Life Begins at Forty. The film’s credits credit Quillen for “contributing dialogue.” My guess is that, if Rogers ever did use the line about Congress, he may have borrowed it from Quillen.

SCARLET O’HARA’S BABY BIRTHIN’ VERSION: “Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them!”        Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949)        American novelist, journalist and philanthropist          This is what the character Scarlett O’Hara says about the “untimeliness” of her pregnancy, in Chapter 38 of Mitchell’s 1936 novel Gone with the Wind.         The line was not used in the classic 1939 movie adaptation, in which actress Vivien Leigh played Scarlet. But if it had been, I imagine her adding one of her favorite sayings: “Fiddle-dee-dee!”

SOMETHING YOU DON’T WANT YOUR DOCTOR TO SAY: “In life only one thing is certain, besides death and taxes...No matter how hard we try, No matter how good our intentions, we are going to make mistakes.”        Dr. Meredith Grey (played by Ellen Pompeo)        In the “Heart of the Matter” episode of the TV show Grey’s Anatomy (Season 4, Episode 4, first aired Oct. 18, 2007)

A GOLF ADDICT’S COUNTERQUOTE: “Ben Franklin was wrong. There is more certainty in life than just death and taxes. There is also the very reliable need for ‘just one more’ piece of golf equipment.”        Dorothy Langley        American author and golfer        In her book A View from the Red Tees: The Truth About Women and Golf (1997)

THE 20TH CENTURY OUTLOOK: “To the typical American on the eve of the twentieth century it appeared a unique country, a land of promise where one person's gain was another person’s opportunity, and the inevitable was not just death and taxes but improvement and growth.”        Richard M. Abrams        Historian and Professor Emeritus, University of California at Berkeley        An observation in his book The Burdens of Progress, 1900-1929 (1978)

THE 21ST CENTURY OUTLOOK: “Besides death and  taxes, this too is certain: The American economy will never return to its  maximum prosperity until it completes a very broad-based tax reform.”         Economists Glenn Hubbard and Peter Navarro        In their book Seeds of Destruction: Why the Path to Economic Ruin Runs Through Washington, and How to Reclaim American Prosperity (2010)

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading…

"Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”– from Macbeth and Trump memes, to Slackers and Superman…

SHAKESPEARE’S FAMOUS QUOTATION: “Life’s but a walking shadow...a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”        William Shakespeare        Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5        Even if you’re not a Shakespeare fan you’ve probably seen or heard things or people described as “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” These words are spoken by Macbeth near the end of The Bard’s play about him, first performed in 1606. They reflect Macbeth’s realization that all the scheming he’d done and the murders he’d committed to become the King of Scotland had ultimately led him to a joyless, grim and meaningless end. Macbeth says the lines after being told that his wife is dead. Soon after, so is he.        The phrase “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” turned into a common way of saying that something, or some person, is loud or attention-getting but essentially inconsequential or irrelevant.         Author William Faulkner helped make “sound and fury” an an especially common phrase by titling what would become his most famous novel The Sound and the Fury (first published in 1929).        By the way, if you are a Shakespeare fan like me, I highly recommend two modern adaptations of Macbeth that you can stream on Amazon: the 2010 PBS “Great Performances” adaptation starring Patrick Stewart as Macbeth in a fascist-style realm, and the visually-stunning 2015 film starring Michael Fassbender in the title role.

TRUMP APPLICATION #1 – THAT WAS THEN... “AN IDIOT, FULL OF SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING”          One of the many snarky internet memes about candidate Donald Trump posted on Facebook prior to his victory in the November 8, 2016 presidential election, a result that was widely dismissed as unlikely or even impossible before it happened.

TRUMP APPLICATION #2 – THIS IS NOW... “Whatever reactions the protesters have, they need to face the facts that Clinton’s large margin in popular votes didn’t translate into an electoral victory. Their protests are mostly ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’ more than profound disappointment.”        Mitch Edelman        American journalist        In his column about the post-election anti-Trump on the Carroll County News site, November 14, 2016

MOVIE QUOTE #1: “I’m what, a slacker?...I’m in that white space where consumer terror meets irony and pessimism, where Scooby Doo and Dr. Faustus hold equal sway over the mind, where the Butthole Surfers provide the background volume, where we choose what is not obvious over what is easy. It goes on...like TV channel-cruising, no plot, no tragic flaws, no resolution, just mastering the moment, pushing forward, full of sound and fury, full of life signifying everything on any given day.”        Richard Linklater        American filmmaker, screenwriter and actor         In his book Slacker (1992), about the making of his 1991 movie Slacker

MOVIE QUOTE #2: “Sitting there at that moment I thought of something else Shakespeare said. He said, ‘Hey, life is pretty stupid, with lots of hubbub to keep you busy but really not amounting to much.’ Of course I'm paraphrasing.”        Steve Martin as the character Harris K. Telemacher        In the movie L.A. Story (1991)

MOVIE BASHING QUOTE #1: “Once you get past all the sound and fury, what you’re left with is basically emptiness.”        Allison Shoemaker        Staff writer for the Consequence of Sound entertainment website        In her review of Tim Burton's 2016 film Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children

MOVIE BASHING QUOTE #2: “‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ is a rancid brew of silence, sound and fury, signifying the absolute worst the comic book movie genre has to offer.”         Alex Biese        American entertainment journalist and reviewer        In his review of the film for the Asbury Park Press, March 28, 2016        NOTE: For some other uses and variations of “full of sound and fury…” see the previous QuoteCounterquote.com post at this link.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *    

Comments? Questions? Corrections? Post them on my quotations Facebook group.

Related reading and viewing…

What this country needs – in addition to a good five-cent cigar...

THE FAMOUS (BUT NOT ORIGINAL) QUOTE: “What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar.”          Thomas Riley Marshall (1854-1925)         U.S. Democratic politician who served two terms as Vice-President under Woodrow Wilson         Remark made in 1917 during a debate in U.S. Senate          Although there are several versions of the story, the usual one is that Marshall uttered his famous quip after Senator Joseph Bristow repeatedly used the phrase “What this country needs…” while making a long-winded speech in the U.S. Senate. Marshall reportedly leaned over and told a Senate clerk, in a voice loud enough to be overheard: “Bristow hasn’t hit it yet. What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar.” Marshall didn’t actually coin the five-cent cigar line. It had been used previously by cartoonist Kin Hubbard in his “Abe Martin of Brown County” cartoon strip and was already in use before Hubbard’s strip began running in newspapers in 1904.

THE “WHAT ARE THEY SMOKING?” UPDATE: “[Senator Ted] Cruz and those who believe as he does are acting like unruly children who stomp their feet and hold their breath until they turn blue if they don’t get their way...Unfortunately for the country, the Democrats have begun to exhibit some of the same stubbornness, and if they don’t heed the signals from the public, they, too, could find themselves in trouble. What this country needs is a viable third party with a more moderate viewpoint that would attract those who aren’t comfortable with the extreme positions of the two current parties.”        Bill Kennedy        Columnist for the Carroll County Times (Westminster, Maryland)        Commenting on the deadlock in Congress that led to a government shutdown, in a column published on September 30, 2013. (Cartoon by Clay Bennett.)

THE KINGFISH’S OBSERVATION: “What this country needs is a dictator...There is no dictatorship in Louisiana. There is a perfect democracy there, and when you have a perfect democracy it is pretty hard to tell it from a dictatorship.”         Huey Long (1893-1935)          Controversial Louisiana politician (nicknamed “The Kingfish”)        Comments to reporters in 1935        Quoted by Arthur Meier Schlesinger in his book The Politics of Upheaval: 1935-1936 (2003)

A STONER’S PARADISE (AND A DEALER’S NIGHTMARE): “What This Country Needs Is a Safe Five-Cent Intoxicant.”        Dr. Martin M. Katz         American psychologist         Title of an article he wrote for Psychology Today, published in the February 1971 issue

A BUSINESSMAN’S OPINION IN 1939: “What this country needs is a businessman for President.”          Berton Churchill (playing the embezzling banker Henry Gatewood)        In the film Stagecoach (1939)        Stagecoach came out at a time when many business leaders were complaining about President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs and the new regulations he had imposed on banks and other businesses. Early in the movie, Gatewood opines: “What’s good for the banks is good for the country.” Later, after secretly stealing thousands of dollars from his bank, Gatewood goes on a long rant about government, saying: “I don’t know what the government is coming to. Instead of protecting businessmen, it pokes its nose into business! Why, they’re even talking now about having bank examiners. As if we bankers don’t know how to run our own banks! Why, at home I have a letter from a popinjay official saying they were going to inspect my books. I have a slogan that should be blazoned on every newspaper in this country: America for the Americans! The government must not interfere with business! Reduce taxes! Our national debt is something shocking. Over one billion dollars a year! What this country needs is a businessman for president!” By putting those words in the mouth of the slimy character Henry Gatewood, director John Ford seemed to be taking a sly shot at Roosevelt’s business critics and expressing support for Roosevelt.

A BUSINESSMAN’S OPINION IN 2011: “Ron Paul cannot get elected...I’m well acquainted with winning, and that’s what this country needs right now: winning.”         Donald Trump            Mega-millionaire, megalomaniac and losing candidate for Republican presidential nomine in 2011         Comments he made at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, February 10, 2011

A POLITICIAN’S USUAL TAUTOLOGICAL SELF-ASSESSMENT: “What this country needs is a man who knows what the country needs.”        Remark by an unnamed speaker at a Colorado School of Mines Alumni Association meeting in 1952        Noted in The Mines magazine: Volume 42 (1952)

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Comments? Questions? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading: books of quotations about politics and government…