Norman Vincent Peale
72 quotes
Biography
Norman Vincent Peale was an American Protestant clergyman, and an author best known for popularizing the concept of positive thinking, especially through his best-selling book The Power of Positive Thinking (1952). He served as the pastor of Marble Collegiate Church, New York, from 1932, leading this Reformed Church in America congregation for more than a half century until his retirement in 1984.
"Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are."
"Four things for success: work and pray, think and believe."
"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."
"What the mind can conceive and believe, and the heart desire, you can achieve."
"When you get up in the morning, you have two choices - either to be happy or to be unhappy. Just choose to be happy"
"Believe it is possible to solve your problem. Tremendous things happen to the believer. So believe the answer will come. It will."
"Imagination is the true magic carpet."
"In a large congregation, while there is a wide diversification of interest, it is also true that there are only a few basic human problems. It must also be taken into consideration that people are people regardless of who they are or what their backgrounds may be. There are certain deep universal appeals to human interest and to these human nature always responds."
"Faced with the election of a Catholic, our culture is at stake."
"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."
"It's not necessary to be born again. You have your way to God, I have mine. I found eternal peace in a Shinto shrine … I've been to Shinto shrines and God is everywhere. … Christ is one of the ways! God is everywhere."
"Our problem is to become acquainted with our own selves, letting our personalities loose upon the world for the sheer adventure of their full development and in the positive hope that they may in their own way lift the level of humanity."
"When obstacles or difficulties arise, the positive thinker takes them as creative opportunities. He welcomes the challenge of a tough problem and looks for ways to turn it to advantage."
"Optimism is a philosophy based on the belief that basically life is good, that, in the long run, the good in life overbalances the evil."
"Who is God? Some theological being? He is so much greater than theology. God is vitality. God is life. God is energy. As you breathe God in, as you visualize His energy, you will be reenergized!"
"Believe that problems do have answers. Believe that they can be overcome. Believe that they can be handled. And finally, believe that you can solve them."
"People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success."
"Happiness will never come if it's a goal in itself; happiness is a by-product of a commitment to worthy causes."
"If you put off everything till you're sure of it, you'll get nothing done."
"Change your thoughts and you can change the world."
"Empty pockets never held anyone back...it's only empty heads and empty hearts that do it."
"Every individual forms his own estimate of himself and that basic estimate goes far toward determining what he becomes. You can do no more than you believe you can. You can be no more than you believe you are. Belief stimulates power within yourself. Have faith in faith. Don't be afraid to trust faith."
"The power of the Plus Factor is potential but it is not self-activating. It is latent in human beings and will remain latent until it is activated."
"The Plus Factor makes its appearance in a person's life in proportion as that person is in harmony with God and His universal laws."
"And now we get down to two magic words that tell us how to accomplish just about anything we want to accomplish, two powerful words that can change any situation, two dynamic words that all too few people use. And what are these two amazing words? Do it!"