Great Throughts Treasury

"One comes to believe whatever one repeats to oneself sufficiently often, whether the statement be true of false. It comes to be dominating thought in one's mind."

"Any thought that is passed on to the subconscious often enough and convincingly enough is finally accepted."

"No flame of desire can long continue to burn vigorously if its supply of suggestive fuel is cut from it."

"Your chances of success in any undertaking can always be measured by your belief in yourself."

"There is nothing on earth you cannot have - once you have mentally accepted the fact that you can have it."

"Your belief that you can do the thing gives your thought forces their power."

"Very few persons, comparatively, know how to Desire with sufficient intensity. They do not know what it is to feel and manifest that intense, eager, longing, craving, insistent, ardent, overwhelming desire of the drowning man for a breath of air; of the shipwrecked or desert-lost man for a drink of water; of the famished man for bread and meat."

"People blame their environment. There is one thing to blame - and only one -- themselves."

"You cannot hold on to anything good. You must be continually giving - and getting. You cannot hold on to your seed. You must sow it - and reap anew. You cannot hold on to riches. You must use them and get other riches in return."

"The source and center of all man's creative power, is his power of making images, or the power of imagination."

"Visualize this thing that you want. See it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blue print and begin to build."

"Take the first step, and your mind will mobilize all its forces to your aid. But the first essential is that you begin. Once the battle is started, all that is within you will come to your assistance."

"The great thing is the start - to see an opportunity for service, and to start doing it, even though in the beginning you serve but a single customer - and him for nothing."

"Start where you are. Distant fields always look greener, but opportunity lies right where you are. Take advantage of every opportunity of service."

"When difficulties confront you, baptize them opportunity and set the man inside you to finding the way to turn them from difficulties into opportunities."

"The great successful people of the world . . . think ahead and create their mental picture, and then go to work materializing that picture in all its details, filling in here, adding a little there, altering this a bit and that a bit but steadily building--steadily building."

"All motion is cyclic. It circulates to the limits of its possibilities and then returns to its starting point."

"A single idea / the sudden flash of a thought / may be worth a million dollars."

"All of us have bad luck and good luck. The man who persists through the bad luck -- who keeps right on going -- is the man who is there when the good luck comes -- and is ready to receive it."

"All power is from within and therefore under our control"

"All riches have their origin in mind. Wealth is in ideas -- not money."

"As fast as each opportunity presents itself, use it! No matter how tiny an opportunity it may be, use it!"

"All through nature, you will find the same law. First the need, then the means."

"Begin to free yourself at once by doing all that is possible with the means you have, and as you proceed in this spirit the way will open for you to do more."

"Constant repetition carries conviction."

"Every contrivance of man, every tool, every instrument, every utensil, every article designed for use, of each and every kind, evolved from a very simple beginning."

"First the stalk -- then the roots. First the need -- then the means to satisfy that need. First the nucleus -- then the elements needed for its growth."

"Faith is the confidence, the assurance, the enforcing truth, the knowing."

"If you don't make things happen then things will happen to you."

"Desire is proof of the availability..."

"It is only when you despair of all ordinary means, it is only when you convince it that it must help you or you perish, that the seed of life in you bestirs itself to provide a new resource."

"If you procrastinate when faced with a big difficult problem... break the problem into parts, and handle one part at a time."

"Imagination gives you the picture. Vision gives you the impulse to make the picture your own."

"In every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat is a lesson showing you how to win the victory next time."

"If you see yourself as prosperous, you will be. If you see yourself as continually hard up, that is exactly what you will be."

"It is only through your conscious mind that you can reach the subconscious. Your conscious mind is the porter at the door, the watchman at the gate. It is to the conscious mind that the subconscious looks for all its impressions."

"Most of us, swimming against the tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise or encouragement - and we will make the goal."

"One might as well try to ride two horses moving in different directions, as to try to maintain in equal force two opposing or contradictory sets of desires."

"Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives."

"Pictures help you to form the mental mold."

"Plant the seed of desire in your mind and it forms a nucleus with power to attract to itself everything needed for its fulfillment."

"It is your work to clear away the mass of encumbering material of thoughts, so that you may bring into plain view the precious thing at the center of the mass."

"It sometimes seems that we have only to solve a thing greatly to get it."

"Make every thought, every fact, that comes into your mind pay you a profit. Make it work and produce for you. Think of things not as they are but as they might be. Don't merely dream - but create!"

"Make your mold. The best flux in the world will not make a usable shape unless you have a mold to pour it in."

"See the things you want as already yours. Think of them as yours, as belonging to you, as already in your possession."

"See things as you would have them be instead of as they are."

"Something must be done when you find an opposing set of desires of this kind well to the fore in your category of strong desires. You must set in operation a process of competition, from which one must emerge a victor and the other set be defeated."

"Sooner or later comes a crisis in our affairs, and how we meet it determines our future happiness and success. Since the beginning of time, every form of life has been called upon to meet such crisis."

"Playing safe is probably the most unsafe thing in the world. You cannot stand still. You must go forward."