Norman Vincent Peale Quotes

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. JAMES 1:5 SEPTEMBER 20 All preaching should have practical applications, for Christianity is a way of life that really works — when it’s lived properly. This includes making right decisions. In the long run, you determine what your life will be by your decisions. You can decide yourself into failure or into success, into mental turmoil or into mental peace, into unhappiness or into happiness. A man remarked to me, “Let’s face it: life goes the way the ball bounces.” I don’t go for any such idea as that at all. There is a deeper reality. We can control the bouncing of life’s circumstances and outcomes as we learn the art of making right decisions. And how do we learn it? I repeat: “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, . . . and it will be given to him.” Believe, really believe, that there is an answer for you and that God will give you the wisdom to find that answer. People who have become great people have been those who have discovered that God will guide them through the problems of their

It is a pity,” he wrote, “that people should let themselves be defeated by the problems, cares, and difficulties of human existence, and it is quite unnecessary.

the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD . . . for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations. PSALM 22:27–28 NOVEMBER 4 It is said that the United States of America was formed by the convergence of two streams of history. One took its rise in the thinking of the philosophers of classical antiquity: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero. These men believed that the human mind must always be free. The other stream took its rise when Moses addressed a nation of slaves and told them that they were children of God, that other men should not put shackles on their wrists or lay whips to their backs. The confluence of these two great streams of thought formed a government predicated upon the greatness of the human mind and the sovereignty of the human soul. I have enormous faith in the continuity of these ideals in the American people. You cannot break a nation built upon such foundations, unless that nation becomes arrogant, forgets its great heritage, and, worse than all else, turns away from God.

enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things; first, an ideal which takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for a carrying that ideal into practice.

The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. GALATIANS 6:8 JUNE 8 God gives us life, and this life continually re-creates itself if we stay in harmony with Him. For He not only creates, He re-creates. But if you abandon Him, if you cut Him off, if you stop the practice of devotion, if you cease the cultivation of your spiritual understanding, then disabilities creep in and you begin to deteriorate. The next question is: How can we recover our identification with God so that we become vital and well? Important in this are the thought patterns we constantly employ, the attitudes by which we live, the pictures of ourselves that we form in our consciousness. There is a great life force that should work for health in us through God, and we must release it.

my suggestion was that every night, upon going to bed, he place a chair beside his bed and tell himself that Jesus was sitting in that chair all night, watching over him and lifting the burden of worry from his shoulders.

Every day flush lack thoughts out of your mind and refill with dynamic thoughts of abundance. Expect generous benefits in never failing supply.

Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them.” ECCLESIASTES 12:1 NOVEMBER 9 I was once interviewed by reporters from a hometown of mine — Findlay, Ohio. They asked me the usual questions. Finally, one of them asked, “Dr. Peale, have you any advice for young people about how to work for a good future for themselves, and, beyond that, how they can help make the world a better place for people everywhere?” With that question in mind, I would suggest that the essential first step would be to let God release a fuller measure of our potential. Everyone has potential. God put it in you. That is a tremendous word: potential. Eleven men once got their potential freed and began to use it, and they turned the whole world upside down with their message of Christ. They were so dynamic that wherever they went, they turned things upside down, bringing new life, new understanding, and new joy. Did anyone ever say that about you? How to release our potential — this is the challenge.

Promises are like crying babies in a theater, they should be carried out at once.

Another effective technique in developing a peaceful mind is the daily practice of silence. Everyone should insist upon not less than a quarter of an hour of absolute quiet every twenty-four hours. Go alone into the quietest place available to you and sit or lie down for fifteen minutes and practice the art of silence. Do not talk to anyone. Do not write. Do not read. Think as little as possible. Throw your mind into neutral. Conceive of your mind as quiescent, inactive. This will not be easy at first because thoughts are stirring up your mind, but practice will increase your efficiency. Conceive of your mind as the surface of a body of water and see how nearly quiet you can make it, so that there is not a ripple. When you have attained a quiescent state, then begin to listen for the deeper sounds of harmony and beauty and of God that are to be found in the essence of silence.

When you affirm big, believe big and pray big, putting faith into action, big things happen.

The greatest secret for eliminating the inferiority complex, which is another term for deep and profound self doubt, is to fill your mind to overflowing with faith. Develop a tremendous faith in God and that will give you a humble yet soundly realistic faith in yourself.

Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you. PSALM 9:10 SEPTEMBER 29 A missionary’s wife in central China during World War II knew the Japanese were approaching her city. She was with her baby girl, two months old, and her son, just over a year old. Her husband had been taken to a hospital, himself ill. He was one hundred and fifteen miles away and would not be back for perhaps a month. The poor woman was filled with fear — she was alone and unprotected, in bitter January weather. When morning came, she realized that she was without food for her children. She pulled off the calendar page. That day’s verse stated simply: “So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children” (Genesis 50:21). There was a rap at the door. “We knew you would be hungry,” said a longtime neighbor, “and you didn’t know how to milk the goats. So I have milked your goats. Here is milk for your children.” Will you try to explain this away, handle it on an intellectual basis as just pure coincidence? When you come right down to it, what is coincidence? It is an act of God in the midst of time.

cannot prevent birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building nests in your hair.

He was suffering from self-love, a chief cure for which is the practice of love for others.