The way you talk about yourself and your life—your story—has a great deal to do with what shows up in your day-to-day experience. Your thoughts create filters through which you view your life. If you think of yourself as a Victim, you filter all that happens to you through the lens of DDT, and you find plenty of evidence to support that viewpoint. That’s why the orientation you adopt is so important: it exerts a powerful influence on your life direction.
—David Emerald
Genius is Omniscience flowing into man.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
The world needs demonstration more than it needs teaching.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
The greatest stock market you can invest in is yourself. Finding this truth is better than finding a gold mine.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
Great performers require a measure of confidence that would strike many as absurd, unfounded, and downright irrational. They believe in themselves utterly, without question, even when everyone else is questioning how good (or sane) they are.
—John Eliot (b.1971) American Psychologist, Academic
It is really true what philosophy tells us, that life must be understood backwards. But with this, one forgets the second proposition, that it must be lived forwards.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
The brain does not make the man; the man makes the brain.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Whatever you habitually think yourself to be, that you are. You must form, now, a greater and better habit; you must form a conception of yourself as a being of limitless power, and habitually think that you are that being. It is the habitual, not the periodical thought that decides your destiny.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss, but that our aim is too low and we reach it.
—Michelangelo (1475–1564) Italian Painter, Sculptor, Architect, Poet, Engineer
The purpose of life for man is growth, just as the purpose of life for trees and plants is growth. Trees and plants grow automatically and along fixed lines; man can grow as he will. Trees and plants can only develop certain possibilities and characteristics; man can develop any power which is or has been shown by any person anywhere. Nothing that is possible in spirit is impossible in flesh and blood. Nothing that man can think is impossible. Nothing that man can imagine is impossible of realization.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
Remember that poise and power are inseparably associated. The calm and balanced mind is the strong and great mind; the hurried and agitated mind is the weak one.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
I will obey my soul and be true to that within me which is highest.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
Greatness once and forever has down with opinion.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.
—Jim Collins (b.1958) American Management Consultant
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Fix upon your ideal of what you wish to make of yourself.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
A state of expectancy is a great assetl; a state of uncertainty—one moment thinking “perhaps” and the next moment thinking “I don’t know”—will never get desired results.
—Ernest Holmes (1887–1960) American New Thought Writer, Teacher
The Principle of Power gives us just what we ask of it; if we only undertake little things, it only gives us power for little things; but if we try to do great things in a great way it gives us all the power there is.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
I am not more gifted than the average human being. If you know anything about history, you would know that is so—what hard times I had in studying and the fact that I do not have a memory like some other people do… I am just more curious than the average person and I will not give up on a problem until I have found the proper solution. This is one of my greatest satisfactions in life—solving problems—and the harder they are, the more satisfaction do I get out of them. Maybe you could consider me a bit more patient in continuing with my problem than is the average human being. Now, if you understand what I have just told you, you see that it is not a matter of being more gifted but a matter of being more curious and maybe more patient until you solve a problem.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Faith—not a faith in one’s self or in one’s own powers but faith in principle; in the Something Great which upholds right, and which may be relied upon to give us the victory in due time. Without this faith it is not possible for any one to rise to real greatness.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Any picture firmly held in any mind, in any form, is bound to come forth. That is the great, unchanging universal law that, when we cooperate with it intelligently, makes us absolute masters of the conditions and situations in our lives.
—Roger McDonald (b.1941) Australian Novelist, Poet, Screenwriter, Writer
The average person’s idea of a great man, rather than one who serves, is of one who succeeds in getting himself served.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
Believe me, you can have anything you want—and in abundance-when you learn to tune into the power within, an infinitely greater power than electricity, a power you have had from the beginning.
—Roger McDonald (b.1941) Australian Novelist, Poet, Screenwriter, Writer
It takes great goals to lead us out of our everyday limits into accomplishing more than we ever thought we could or would.
—Robert Cooper (b.1947) British Diplomat
Without faith it is impossible to please God, and without faith it is impossible for you to become great. The distinguishing characteristic of all really great men and women is an unwavering faith.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
Nothing great in this world has been accomplished without passion.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German Philosopher
You can never become a great man or woman until you have overcome anxiety, worry, and fear. It is impossible for an anxious person, a worried one, or a fearful one to perceive truth; all things are distorted and thrown out of their proper relations by such mental states, and those who are in them cannot read the thoughts of God.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher