Sanskrit
सत्त्वानुरूपा सर्वस्य श्रद्धा भवति भारत । श्रद्धामयोऽयं पुरुषो यो यच्छ्रद्धः स एव सः ॥
sattvānurūpā sarvasya śraddhā bhavati bhārata śraddhāmayo'yaṃ puruṣo yo yac-chraddhaḥ sa eva saḥ
Translation
The faith of each is shaped to his own nature, O Bhârata. The man consists of his faith; that which his faith is, he is even that.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The chapter’s most quoted line, and worth being precise about what kind of claim it is making. This isn’t the metaphysical teaching of Chapter 2, where the true Self stands untouched by any quality a person exhibits — it’s a characterological claim about the empirical personality: whatever you trust, revere, and orient your inner life around becomes the shape you take. Read against Chapter 2’s atman doctrine, the two aren’t contradictory so much as operating at different altitudes — one describes what a person fundamentally is, the other describes what a person becomes.