"You can always tell what you believe by what you are getting"
About this Quote
The intent is practical, even corrective. If you say you believe you deserve respect but keep accepting disrespect, the quote implies your lived “belief” is the one your behavior keeps paying for. “Getting” does double duty: it suggests what you receive from others and what you settle for internally. It’s not mystical; it’s behavioral economics for self-image. Your life is the invoice.
The subtext is both empowering and accusatory. Empowering because it puts belief back in your hands - change the pattern, change the results, and the belief will follow. Accusatory because it strips away the comfort of claiming noble values while outsourcing responsibility for their absence. It quietly rejects the modern loophole of “I know my truth” by insisting the scoreboard is the truth.
Contextually, this sits neatly in late-20th-century self-help and prosperity culture, where “mindset” gets treated as infrastructure. Cohen’s twist is that mindset isn’t what you declare; it’s what you repeatedly authorize. The quote works because it forces a painful audit: if you don’t like what you’re getting, you may need to renegotiate what you actually believe you’re worth.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Cohen, Alan. (2026, January 16). You can always tell what you believe by what you are getting. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-can-always-tell-what-you-believe-by-what-you-127917/
Chicago Style
Cohen, Alan. "You can always tell what you believe by what you are getting." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-can-always-tell-what-you-believe-by-what-you-127917/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"You can always tell what you believe by what you are getting." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-can-always-tell-what-you-believe-by-what-you-127917/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.








