Norman Vincent Peale Quotations | Page 3

Think, the successful idea is always in your mind. Think it out.

Do not build up obstacles in your imagination. Difficulties must be studied and dealt with, but they must not be magnfiied by fear

Be humble, be big in mind and soul, be kindly; you will like yourself that way and so will other people

Every day practice emptying your mind of all unhealthy attitudes.

Many people conceive of religion as something apart from everyday affairs of the world. They think of it in terms of ceremony or ritual or sermons and often it strikes them as being dull or not particularly interesting. Religion may be described in many ways. I like to think of it as a medicine, a healing medicine for the mind.

Listen to the magic word of motivation and you will hear it. Then the sky is the limit.

The man who lives for himself is a failure. Even if he gains much wealth, position or fortune, he is still a failure. The man who lives for others has achieved true success. A rich man who consecrates his wealth and his position to the good of humanity is a success.

Make sure you pay attention to what's right with your life, not just what's wrong.

Expect the best and get it.

The only people who don't have problems are in a cemetery.

They are inherently good -- the bad reactions aren't basic. Every human being is a child of God and has more good in him than evil -- but circumstances and associates can step up the bad and reduce the good. I've got great faith in the essential fairness and decency -- you may say goodness -- of the human being

Fear is strong, but faith is stronger yet.

Try to see the joyful side of life. One must see the pain of life with clear eyes, and help all he can; but there is also lots of joy, and on should see that, too.

Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun. Change your thoughts and you change your world.

One person can make a difference. You don't have to be a big shot. You don't have to have a lot of influence. You just have to have faith in your power to change things.

As long as enthusiasm holds out, so will new opportunities.

Have great hopes and dare to go all out for them. Have great dreams and dare to live them. Have tremendous expectations and believe in them.

You can do amazing things if you have strong faith, deep desire, and just hang in there.

Never react emotionally to criticism. Analyze yourself to determine whether it is justified. If it is, correct yourself. Otherwise, go on about your business.

The Bible - the wisest document ever known in human existence, which defies the ravages of time and change because it contains the truth that cannot be changed or invalidated.

When you discover the wonder of giving, you will wonder how you could have lived so long in any other way.

Through persistence, self-knowledge, prayer, commitment, optimism, a resolute trust in God and the building of your own personal moral strength, you can enjoy the blessings of a deeper faith and face the difficulties of life with courage and confidence.

No sin is committed merely because a thought enters the mind, provided it is not made welcome. Perhaps we may use the figure that the thought first passes into an anteroom, where it stands before the mind acting as a judge. No matter how sordid or evil, it has not touched the personality with its infamy nor in any way laid guilt upon the soul unless and until the mind acting as judge admits it with a welcome. If the mind decides against it and dismisses it, the personality is not only unsullied but is, on the contrary, by this act of rejection stimulated and strengthened in moral power.

Nothing is more confusing than people who give good advice but set a bad example.

Fear can infect us early in life until eventually it cuts a deep groove of apprehension in all our thinking. To counteract it, let faith, hope and courage enter your thinking. Fear is strong, but faith is stronger yet.

When we have peace in our hearts, we also have love in our hearts and good will toward all men.

I believe in the power of Jesus Christ to resolve any difficulty, to remove any weakness, to heal any disease.

When a person applies enthusiasm to his job, the job will itself become alive with exciting new possibilities.

It is a fact that you project what you are.

Make a true estimate of your own ability, then raise it ten per cent.

You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind. Your mind gets bored and therefore tired of doing nothing.

Artur Rubinstein, the famous pianist, was once asked the secret of his success-was it dedication, ability, discipline, hard work? Mr. Rubinstein smiled as he remarked, "It's hard to say, but one thing I do know: if you love life, life will love you back!" What a wonderful insight! That philosophy explains how a man in his eighties can continue to be so creative. For life is simply filled with exciting blessings for everybody. They're ours if we give enough of ourselves to life!

There is nothing at all wrong with having money unless money has you.

Every day remind yourself of your own ability, of your good mind and affirm that you can make something really good out of your life.

It is said that history turns on small hinges. A human career, too, results from an accumulating series of decisions about large and small matters over a period of years. But the catch is that you can never know when a seemingly small decision may prove to be, from the vantage of later years, the big decision of your life.

A clean mind always delivers power.

Cut the "im" out of impossible, leading that dynamic word standing out free and clear-possible.

Hope is wanting something so eagerly that-in spite of all the evidence that you're not going to get it-you go right on wanting it.

... not mere achievement, but rather the more difficult feat of handling your life efficiently. It means to be a success as a person; controlled, organized, not part of the world's problems, but part of its cure. ... of being creative individuals.

You must never conclude, even though everything goes wrong, that you cannot succeed. Even at the worst there is a way out, a hidden secret that can turn failure into success and despair into happiness. No situation is so dark that there is not a ray of light

Plant seeds of expectation in your mind; cultivate thoughts that anticipate achievement. Believe in yourself as being capable of overcoming all obstacles and weaknesses.

When you get up in the morning, you have two choices - either to be happy or to be unhappy. Just choose to be happy

When I dig another out of trouble, the hole from which I lift him is the place where I bury my own.

Eliminate the word "impossible" from your conversation, drop it from your thoughts, erase it from your attitudes. Stop rationalizing it. Cease excusing it. Substitute for it that bright and shining word...POSSIBLE."

The word resentment means to re-feel...to feel again. Someone wrongs or wounds you; in resenting it, you re-feel the injury. And you re-hurt yourself. The Hebrew Talmud says that a person who bears a grudge is "Like one who, having cut one hand while handling a knife, avenges himself by stabbing the other hand."

I was brought up on the romance of American achievement. No matter where you start, if you work hard and if you think positively and if you dream dreams and if you have good character, you can lift the status of yourself, your family, your friends and everyone around you. This doesn't mean that your object in life is to become rich or famous. Just do the best you can with yourself. I think that Almighty God has put that into us and I'm going to do the best I can with myself. That's what I call the romance of achievement. Achievement means to be what, by the grace of God, you can be....

The longer I live the more I am convinced that neither age nor circumstance needs to deprive us of energy and vitality. We are at last awakening to the close relationship between religion and health. . . .our physical condition is determined very largely by our emotional condition, and our emotional life is profoundly regulated by our thought life.

You can make yourself enthusiastic by affirming enthusiasm and by thinking, talking, acting enthusiastic.

I believe absolutely and certainly that, when you die, you will meet your loved ones and know them and be reunited with them, never to be seperated again.

Believe that problems do have answers, that they can be overcome, and that you can solve them.

The one person who most blocks you from a full, happy, and successful life is you.

Stand up to an obstacle. Just stand up to it, that's all, and don't give way under it, and it will finally break. You will break it. Something has to break, and it won't be you, it will be the obstacle.

All successful people have a goal. No one can get anywhere unless he knows where he wants to go and what he wants to be or do.

Do not build up obstacles in your imagination.

Don't bother. The glass is half-empty.

A basic law: the more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for.

The bigger your problems, the bigger your prayer should be.

Having asked God for forgiveness, accept release, then truly forgive yourself and turn your back definitely on the matter.

If Jesus were alive today, he'd probably be at the Super Bowl.

Affirm it, visualize it, believe it and it will actualize itself.

There exists a powerful energizing force in the spiritual life principle. All energy began with the Creator, who infused it not only in all natural processes, but also into that higher form of nature called human nature. The more closely, then, that a person identifies with the Creator, the more surely that person will experience within his or her own nature the process of re-creation which operates in all creation.

Only the person who risks is truly free. A man's conquest of himself dwarfs the conquest of Mt. Everest.

The negative principle negates. The positive principle creates. The negative principle doubts. The positive principle believes. The negative principle accepts defeat. The positive principle goes for victory.

If you think lack you tend to create a condition of lack. Shift your thought pattern to one of abundance and believe that God is now in the process of giving you the abundance you need.

Resentment or grudges do no harm to the person against whom you hold these feelings but every day and every night of your life, they are eating at you.

There is nothing in life so difficult that it cannot be overcome. This faith can move mountains. It can change people. It can change the world. You can survive all the great storms in your life

There are no circumstances in your life where God will not stand will not stand with you and help you, no matter what the trouble may be.

Cherish your family connections. They are one of God's greatest ways of demonstrating his love and fellowship.

The really happy people are those who have broken the chains of procrastination, those who find satisfaction in doing the job at hand. They're full of eagerness, zest, productivity. You can be, too.

When you are afraid, do the thing you are afraid of and soon you will lose your fear of it.

Believe it is possible to solve your problem. Tremendous things happen to the believer. So believe the answer will come. It will.

Think enthusiastically about everything; but especially about your job. If you do so, you'll put a touch of glory in your life. If you love your job with enthusiasm, you'll shake it to pieces.

Your enthusiasm will be infectious, stimulating and attractive to others. They will love you for it They will go for you and with you

To cure worry, spend fifteen minutes daily filling your mind full of God. Worry is just a very bad mental habit. You can change any habit with God's help.

Take charge of your mind and begin to fill it with healthy, positive, and courageous thoughts.

A masterful retreat is itself a victory.

The whole trend and quality of anyone's life is determined in the long run by the choices that are made.

God answers prayer in three ways: yes, no, and wait awhile.

Hold an image of the life you want, and that image will become fact.

Decide that you will not try to do everything at once. That is why time is spread out.

You do not need to let anything get you down, but if you are down you certainly need not let anything keep you down.

We reach the goal not by the stairs, but by the lift..... God pledges his promised righteousness to those who will stop trying to save themselves. Change your thoughts and you change your world.

Promise yourself success at the beginning of each day, and you'll be surprised how often things will turn out that way.

When obstacles or difficulties arise, the positive thinker takes them as creative opportunities.

Getting along with the gang in one place is not any harder than getting along in another. It depends about 98 percent on your own behavior.

Good intentions are no substitute for obedience.

Worry is an unhealthy and destructive mental habit.

A true apology is more than just aknowledgment of a mistake. It is recognition that something you have said or done has damaged a relationship and that you care enough about the relationship to want it repaired and restored.

Think positively about yourself.... ask God who made you to keep on remaking you.

Humans will never be hampered as smooth bag. They just dragged and dropped upon his head and empty heart

Believe that all the resources you need are in your mind. That is a formula that really works.

The positive thinker, on the contrary, constantly sends out positive thoughts, together with vital mental images of hope, optimism and creativity. He therefore activates the world around him positively and strongly tends to draw back to himself positive results. This, too, is a basic law of mind action.

I've got great faith in the essential fairness and decency - you may say goodness - of the human being.

Never react emotionally to what happens but always look for and find in every circumstance the good that's surely present there.

Avoid arguments, but whenever a negative attitude is expressed, counter with a positive and optimistic opinion.

Lots of people limit their possibilities by giving up easily. Never tell yourself this is too much for me. It's no use. I can't go on. If you do you're licked, and by your own thinking too. Keep believing and keep on keeping on.

The most vital, creative, and positive thoughts are those stated in the Bible. Its words are alive and form powerful thought processes.

Make a mental list of happy thoughts and pass them through your mind several times every day.

Go at life with abandon; give it all you've got. And life will give all it has to you.

Today any successful and competent businessman will employ the latest and best-tested methods in production, distribution, and administration. Many are discovering that one of the greatest of all efficiency methods is prayer power.