This paper analyses some words which appear several times, in different ways, in the Nietzschean corpus: “wie man wird was man ist”, “how one becomes what one is”. This sentences translates the motto of Pindar’s Pythical Odes, an imperative we could rewrite as: “transform yourself in what you are”. Herein the sentences is put in connection with the idea of Bildung and Bildungsroman, in order to point their similarities and differences.