The Power of Positive Thinking

by Norman Vincent Peale

Upon analysis I found that he “talked too much” simply because of an inferiority feeling. To compensate for it he succumbed to the temptation of parading his knowledge.

Develop a tremendous faith in God and that will give you a humble yet soundly realistic faith in yourself.

She answered that ordinary problems could be met by ordinary prayers, but that “when a big trouble comes along, you have to pray deep prayers.”

“According to your faith be it unto you.” (Matthew 9:29)

“Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

I urged him to put the matter in God’s hands and simply do the right thing, leaving the outcome to God.

The man who assumes success tends already to have success.

To assure something worth while happening, first pray about it and test it according to God’s will; then print a picture of it on your mind as happening, holding the picture firmly in consciousness. Continue to surrender the picture to God’s will—that is to say, put the matter in God’s hands—and follow God’s guidance. Work hard and intelligently, thus doing your part to achieve success in the matter. Practice believing and continue to hold the picturization firmly in your thoughts. Do this and you will be astonished at the strange ways in which the picturization comes to pass.

Pray for people you do not like or who have mistreated you. Resentment is blockade number one of spiritual power.

Lincoln, whom nobody could accuse of being superficial, said that people were just about as happy as they made up their minds to be. You can be unhappy if you want to be. It is the easiest thing in the world to accomplish. Just choose unhappiness. Go around telling yourself that things aren’t going well, that nothing is satisfactory, and you can be quite sure of being unhappy. But say to yourself, “Things are going nicely. Life is good. I choose happiness,” and you can be quite certain of having your choice.

Children are more expert in happiness than adults. The adult who can carry the spirit of a child into middle and old age is a genius, for he will preserve the truly happy spirit with which God endowed the young.

The card reads as follows: “The way to happiness: keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Fill your life with love. Scatter sunshine. Forget self, think of others. Do as you would be done by. Try this for a week and you will be surprised.”

In other words, whatever you are doing, give it all you’ve got. Give every bit of yourself. Hold nothing back. Life cannot deny itself to the person who gives life his all. But most people, unfortunately, don’t do that. In fact, very few people do, and this is a tragic cause of failure, or, if not failure, it is the reason we only half attain.

“I believe that if you want to get somewhere, you must decide definitely where you want to be or what you want to accomplish. Be sure it is a right objective, then photograph this objective on your mind and hold it there. Work hard, believe in it, and the thought will become so powerful that it will tend to assure success. There is a deep tendency,” he declared, “to become what your mind pictures, provided you hold the mental picture strongly enough and if the objective is sound.”

if you expect the best, you are given some strange kind of power to create conditions that produce the desired results. From now on I am changing my mental attitude and shall expect the best,

Your obstacles are present all right. They are not fanciful, but they are not actually so difficult as they seem. Your mental attitude is the most important factor. Believe that Almighty God has put in you the power to lift yourself out of the rough by keeping your eye firmly fixed on the source of your power. Affirm to yourself that through this power you can do anything you have to do. Believe that this power is taking the tension out of you, that this power is flowing through you. Believe this, and a sense of victory will come.

A fundamental doctrine of Emerson is that the human personality can be touched with Divine power and thus greatness can be released from it. William James pointed out that the greatest factor in any undertaking is one’s belief about it. Thoreau told us that the secret of achievement is to hold a picture of a successful outcome in mind.

God’s help I am now emptying my mind of all anxiety, all fear, all sense of insecurity.” Repeat this slowly five times, then add, “I believe that my mind is now emptied of all anxiety, all fear, all sense of insecurity.” Repeat that statement five times, meanwhile holding a mental picture of your mind as being emptied of these concepts. Then thank God for thus freeing you from fear. Then go to sleep.

“nothing is impossible” unto us, and “according to your faith be it done unto you.” So if you shift your mind from fear to faith you will stop creating the object of your fear and will, instead, actualize the object of your faith. Surround your mind with healthy thoughts, thoughts of faith, and not fear, and you’ will produce faith results instead of fear results.

Marcus Aurelius, one of the great thinkers of antiquity, who said, “A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.”

It has been said that the wisest man who ever lived in America was Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Sage of Concord. Emerson declared, “A man is what he thinks about all day long.”

Conditions are created by thoughts far more powerfully than conditions create thoughts.

Think positively, for example, and you set in motion positive forces which bring positive results to pass. Positive thoughts create around yourself an atmosphere propitious to the development of positive outcomes. On the contrary, think negative thoughts and you create around yourself an atmosphere propitious to the development of negative results.

To change your circumstances, first start thinking differently. Do not passively accept unsatisfactory circumstances, but form a picture in your mind of circumstances as they should be. Hold that picture, develop it firmly in all details, believe in it, pray about it, work at it, and you can act...