200 Important Quotes from Napoleon Hill

Copyright © 2014 Noel N

Published by Noel N at Smashwords

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Dear reader,

Reading Napoleon Hill’s books made me realize the power of the human mind. Needless to say he quickly became my favorite author and I developed an obsession with his books. These quotes from the various books by Napoleon Hill are some of what I consider to be the most important and powerful things he’s ever said. Read them again and again whenever you feel the need and perhaps use them as a reference.

Remember: “You have it within you to become as successful as you really want to be. Decide now what you want out of life and then go after it.” –Succeed and Grow Rich Through Persuasion

Noel N

• Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.

• You become what you think about.

• Keep your mind fixed on what you want in life, not on what you don’t want.

• The mind serves best which is used most.

• No one has yet discovered the limitations of the power of his own mind.

• Our only limitations are those we set up in our own minds.

• The only limitations that can hold you back are those you willingly accept as unbeatable. You’ll never know the miracles your mind can perform until you acquire the habit of casting off these imaginary shackles. Only you can do it. Others might encourage and urge and advise. But the final blow for freedom of the mind is yours alone to strike.

• Who told you it couldn’t be done, and what great achievements has he performed that qualified him to set up limitations for you?

• Whatever your mind feeds upon your mind attracts to you.

• The mind grows only through use, and it atrophies through idleness.

• You are more apt to “rust” out your brain from disuse than you are to wear it out from use.

• You can do it if you believe you can.

• If you don’t believe in yourself, how can you ask others to do so?

• You cannot afford to suggest to another person, by word of mouth or in writing, or through any act, that which you yourself do not believe.

• You have within you all the power you need with which to get whatever you want or need in this world, and about the best way to avail yourself of this power is to believe in yourself.

• One comes to believe whatever one repeats to one’s self, whether the statement be true or false.

• Might throws itself on the side of those who believe in right.

• Success come to those who become success conscious.

• All success begins with definiteness of purpose.

• Drifting, without aim or purpose, is the first cause of failure.

• The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.

• When your desires are strong enough you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve.

• In every adversity or defeat there is a seed of equal or greater benefit.

• Many successful people have found opportunities in failure and adversity that they could not recognize in more favorable circumstances.

• It isn’t defeat, but rather your mental attitude toward it, that whips you.

• A quitter never wins and a winner never wins.

• UNTIL you have learned to be tolerant with those who do not always agree with you - until you have cultivated the habit of saying some kind word of those whom you do not admire – until you have formed the habit of looking for the good instead of the bad there is in others, you will be neither successful nor happy.

• If we sow the seeds of hatred and envy and discouragement in others, we, in turn, develop these qualities in ourselves.

• Every "shady" transaction in which you engage, every negative thought that you think, and every destructive act in which you indulge, destroys just so much of that "subtle something" within you that is known as character.

• Sound character is our greatest asset because it provides the power with which we may ride the emergencies of life instead of going down under them.

• Faith is the only known antidote for failure!

• Faith is the “eternal elixir” which gives life, power, and action to the impulse of thought!

• No one who lacks faith in himself is really educated in the proper sense of the term.

• You cannot succeed when surrounded by disloyal and unfriendly associates, no matter what may be the object of your definite chief aim. Success is built upon loyalty, faith, sincerity, co-operation and the other positive forces with which one must surcharge his environment.

• When you get yourself under complete control, you can be your own boss.

• The Golden Rule means we should do unto others as we would wish them to do unto us if our positions were reversed.

• Do not think you ever can fake the Golden Rule. It will avail you nothing to appear to give what someone else wants, while at heart you are covering up a dishonest and selfish nature.

• Good intentions are useless until they are expressed in appropriate action.

• Never ask anyone to do anything for you that you wouldn’t do for him or her if the circumstances were reversed.

• There is a strong connection between the power to make money and the power to know your own mind and fulfill your own self as a fully realized person.

• There is no such reality as failure save only that circumstance which is accepted as such.

• Failure so often hates the very sight of success. Speaking with successful men, I have noticed they speak in complimentary terms of other men who are succeeding. Their attitude is not one of envy, but of willingness to learn from others.

• It is always better to imitate a successful man than to envy him.

• Watch the one ahead of you, and you’ll learn why he is ahead. Then emulate him.

• Do not expect something for nothing. Be willing to give an equivalent value for all that you desire, and include in your plans a definite provision for doing so.

• Procrastination, the opposite of decision, is a common enemy which practically everyone must conquer.

• Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.

• Do it now.

• Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.

• Study yourself, find out what are the motives which actuate you in the performance of certain deeds and cause you to refrain from performing

other deeds, and you will have gone far toward perfecting yourself in the accurate use of imagination.

• We do not worry over conditions, once we have reached a decision to follow a definite line of action.

• The way to success is the way to action, based upon organized thinking followed by action, action, action.

• Enthusiasm is a state of mind that inspires and arouses one to put ACTION into the task at hand. It is the most contagious of all emotions and transmits the impetus toward agreement and action to all within reach of your words.

• If you really are smarter than others, show them with your actions.

• Concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession.

• When an obsessional motive is backed by strong will power, the subconscious mind has been known to reveal information never before known to man.

• Strength, both physical and spiritual, is the product of struggle!

• The power which gave this nation (America) its freedom is the self-same power that must be used by every individual who becomes self-determining.

• Form the habit of going the extra mile, giving service that is not expected, for this attracts friends, clients, and supporters in many ways

• The end of the rainbow is reached only at the end of the second mile.

• Render more service and better service than that for which you are paid and sooner or later you will receive compound interest from your investment,

for it is inevitable that every seed of useful service you now sow will multiply itself and come back to you in overwhelming abundance.

• The quality and quantity of the service you render, plus the attitude with which you render it, determine the amount of pay you get and the sort of job you hold.

• Those who do no more than they are paid for have no real basis for requesting more pay because they are already getting all they deserve to earn.

• Only the highway of useful service leads to the city of happiness.

• When you start giving out, you’ll soon begin taking in.

• The surest way to promote yourself is to help others get ahead.

• It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.

• The climb upward will be easier if you take others along with you.

• Remember, it is not necessary for others to fail in order that you may succeed.

• The richest persons are those who give most in service to others.

• Some individuals appear to be “allergic” to honest work, but opportunity is equally allergic to them.

• Do your job precisely as if you were your own boss, and sooner or later you will be.

• Instead of complaining about what you don’t like about your job, start commending what you do like and see how quickly it improves.

• The chances are that your job likes you precisely as much as you like it, but no more.

• When the going is hardest, just keep on keeping on, and you’ll get there sooner than someone who finds the going easy.

• Have you noticed that the most effective worker is generally the busiest?

• The best recommendation is the one you give yourself by rendering superior service – with the right mental attitude.

• When you approach every job enthusiastically in a spirit of friendly cooperation, you distinguish yourself from the vast majority of people.

• If your mental attitude is negative, if you complain and find fault with others, it will offset whatever you do, even if you do more than you are paid to do.

• If you can’t manage your own mental attitude, what makes you think you can manage others?

• A positive mind finds a way it can be done. A negative mind looks for all the ways it can’t be done.

• Your mental attitude is the most dependable key to your personality.

• Self-respect is the best means of getting the respect of others.

• It is always safe to talk about others as long as you speak of their good qualities.

• A mind ill with negative attitudes is more dangerous than a sick body, for its sickness is always contagious

• Most illness begins with a negative mind.

• When you close the door of your mind to negative thoughts, the door of opportunity opens to you.

• A negative mind spawns only negative ideas.

• When you offer a negative thought of action, you open the negative memory-bank and you may lose all your power to persuade.

• Remember that no one is ever rewarded or promoted because of a bad disposition and negative mental attitude

• If you know your own mind, you know enough to keep it always positive.

• A negative mind never attracts happiness or material success, but it will attract their opposites.

• If life hands you a lemon, don’t complain, but instead make lemonade to sell those who are thirsty from complaining.

• Success is good at any age, but the sooner you find it, the longer you will enjoy it.

• It’s a sure thing that you will not finish if you don’t start. The most difficult part of any job is getting started.

• If you can’t do great things, do small things in a great way.

• Happiness is found in doing, not merely possessing.

• More gold had been mined from the mind of men than the earth itself.

• If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it…

• Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent.

• The way of success is the way of continuous pursuit of knowledge.

• If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.

• Know your own mind and you will be as wise as the sages.

• Control your own mind, and you may never be controlled by the mind of another.

• No one could ride a horse if the horse discovered its real strength. The same thing is true for people.

• Success in its highest and noblest form calls for peace of mind and enjoyment and happiness which come only to the man who has found the work that he likes best.

• Every brain is both a broadcasting station and a receiving station for the vibrations of thought.

• The best method of protecting oneself against the inflow of negative thoughts being released by other people is that of keeping the broadcasting station so busy sending out positive thoughts that no time will be available for receiving negative thoughts. This formula is unbeatable.

• When you take your affairs too seriously you steal from your peace of mind. A really big man knows the world around him is bigger than he is. The tensions incurred in trying to “live big” when it is not in your nature may bring you a guilty conscience and other troubles.

• Peace of mind is wealth.

• Peace of mind often comes at last when a man discovers how to give without planning to give; how to give when the need is evident and without

thought of gain. There has to be a limit on physical giving, but the spirit of giving knows no limit.

• If you compromise with your own conscience, you will weaken your conscience. Soon your conscience will fail to guide you and you never will have real wealth based on peace of mind.

• No man who thinks that happiness lies in having too much ever will be happy.

• Nobody who lives only to accumulate money can know happiness, and there is no real success unless one is successful in being happy.

• Opposition is a healthy circumstance. It makes one either prove the soundness of his plan or discover its weaknesses. I’d expect to make adjustments as I went along.

• Success requires no explanations. Failure permits no alibis.

• Enthusiasm helps you do great amounts of work without fatigue.

• Enthusiasm is the great tool of persuasion.

• Enthusiasm is a vital force that energizes all the forces of your mind and body. Make enthusiasm part of any auto-suggestion process; part of you.

• Once you understand this principle of autosuggestion, it will be easy for you to understand why your mind should be kept busy at all times, in pursuit of a definite major purpose. That will keep your mind out of mischief and force it to work for you – not against you.

• Enthusiasm is the one great emotion which automatically guarantees that your point of view will be positive!

• You either take possession of your mind and direct it toward the attainment of your major definite purpose, or your mind will take possession of you and give you whatever the circumstances of life hand out.

• Where will you be ten years from now if you keep on going the way you are going?

• Don’t be afraid to aim high when choosing your life’s goal, for no matter how high you aim, your achievements may fall below it.

• A rudderless ship and a purposeless person are eventually stranded on desert sand.

• Never mind what others didn’t do. It’s what you do that counts.

• The beginning of a successful business is an idea.

• Remember that those things that have never been done before offer the greatest challenge and opportunity. The pioneer who first accomplishes them is the one who reaps the reward.

• Most misfortunes are the results of misused time.

• If you work as hard at the task you desire to do as the task you must do, you will go places.

• Your progress in life begins in your own mind and ends in the same place.

• Don’t look to the stars for the cause of your misfortunes. Look to yourself to get better results.

• No one can keep you down but yourself.

• Those who succeed keep open minds and are afraid of nothing.

• If you don’t know what you want, don’t say you never had a chance.

• There always remains an opportunity to make a new start.

• Most failures could have been converted into successes if someone had held on another minute or made more effort.

• Success attracts success and failure attracts failure because of the law of harmonious attraction.

• Failure seems to be nature’s plan for preparing us for great responsibilities.

• I cannot succeed and remain successful without the friendly cooperation of others.

• Friction in machinery costs money. Friction in human relationships impoverishes both the spirit and the bank account.

• If you cannot agree with others, you can at least refrain from quarreling with them.

• Remember, it takes at least two people to carry on a quarrel.

• You can’t control others’ acts, but you can control your reaction to their acts, and that is what counts most to you.

• Friendly cooperation is never any part of the devil’s work. He is working on the other side.

• All enduring success is founded upon harmonious human relationships.

• There is always a place for the person who can create harmony in human relationships.

• Remember: Friendship and harmonious cooperation are priceless assets which can be acquired only by giving them in return.

• Willing cooperation produces enduring power, while forced cooperation ends in failure.

• Remember that no one can hurt your feelings without your cooperation and willingness.

• Unlimited power may be available when two or more people coordinate their thoughts and actions in a spirit of perfect harmony for the attainment of a definite purpose.

• The worst thing about worry is that it attracts a whole flock of relatives.

• A most beneficial use of time is silent meditation, while searching for guidance from within.

• It doesn’t pay to look at others through a foggy mental attitude.

• A positive mental attitude is basic to all achievement.

• A positive mental attitude is an irresistible force that knows no such thing as an immovable body.

• Individuals with a positive mental attitudes are never found in a rut.

• If you are sure you are right, you need not worry what the world thinks.

• If you don’t know why you failed, you are no wiser than when you began.

• Be sure about what you want from life and doubly sure of what you have to give in return.

• This is a fine world for the person who knows precisely what he or she expects from life and is busy getting it.

• The imagination is the workshop of the soul, where are shaped all the plans for individual achievement.

• Your job will never be any bigger than your imagination makes it.

• If you have a better way of doing anything, your idea may be worth a fortune.

• Opportunity has a queer way of stalking the person who can recognize it and is ready to embrace it.

• Those who are quick to see their limitations generally are slow in seeing their opportunities.

• Don’t ever admit that the world has not given you an opportunity.

• If it isn’t your job to do it, perhaps it is your opportunity.

• A resourceful person will always make opportunity fit his or her needs.

• Dependability is the first foundation stone of good character.

• Before opportunity crowns you with great success, it usually tests your mettle through adversity.

• Your true age is determined by your mental attitude, not the years you have lived.

• Your own mental attitude is your real boss.

• Change your mental attitude, and the world around you will change accordingly.

• Act on your own initiative, but be prepared to assume full responsibility for your acts.

• Constancy of purpose is the first principle of success.

• You will never be greater than the thoughts that dominate your mind.

• A wise man watches his faults more closely than his virtues; fools reverse the order.

• Sometimes it is wiser to join forces with opponents than to fight them.

• Before trying to master others, be sure you are the master of yourself.

• Wisdom consists in knowing what not to want as well as what to want.

• Nature yields her most profound secrets to those who are determined to uncover them.

• When you ask another person to do something, it may help both him and you if you tell him what to do, why he should do it, when he should do it, where he should do it, and how he may best do it.

• If you don’t want your life to be “messed up,” don’t fool around with those who have messed up theirs.

• Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.

• There is an abundance of everything for the person who knows what he wants.

• Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.

• No one has ever attained outstanding success in any calling without applying the master mind principle. This is because no one mind is complete by itself.

• History clearly reveals that the men who are successful are those who have placed all their eggs in one basket and concentrated their major efforts upon the protection of that basket.

• Don’t be in too big a hurry to get to the top of the ladder of success, for then you can move in only one direction – down.

• Remember that your real wealth can be measured, not by what you have, but, by what you are.

• Boastfulness is generally an admission of an inferiority complex.

• The only safe way to boast is by constructive actions.

• FEAR no man, hate no man, wish no one misfortune, and more than likely you will have plenty of friends.

• Put your foot upon the neck of the fear of criticism by reaching a decision not to worry about what other people think, do, or say.

• Close the door of fear behind you and see how quickly the door to faith will open in front of you.

• Too many people stretch their social consciences into consciences full of fear, depression and self-defeat. Marching through life with courage and confidence does away with fear, and there is no need to be concerned with the size of your tombstone.

• It’s not the epitaph on your tombstone but the record of your deeds that may perpetuate your name after death.

• Ultimately nothing matters. A negative counsel? By no means. Ultimately, nothing matters. Everything matters in its time and in its place-and give everything its due. Yet reserve a small corner of the consciousness for the ultimate which maintains perspective, which recognizes the ages as well as today. It makes you more peaceful, it makes you more sure of yourself, and it makes you stronger.

• No man is properly educated until he has read Emerson's essays and understands them.

I’d like to end this book with a powerful quote from Andrew Carnegie:

“The major difference between those who accept limitation of daily wages sufficient only for a bare living, and myself, is this: I demand riches in definite terms; I have a definite plan for acquiring riches; I am engaged in carrying out my plan, and I am giving an equivalent, in useful service, of the value of those riches I demand, while the others have no such plan or purpose.”

To see more from me visit my website at http://demandriches.com and check out my author page here http://amazon.com/author/noeln.

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References and Recommended reading:

Napoleon Hill (1928) Law of Success

Napoleon Hill (1937) Think and Grow Rich

Napoleon Hill (1961) PMA Science of Success Course

Napoleon Hill (1967) Grow Rich! with Peace of Mind

Napoleon Hill (1971) You Can Work Your Own Miracles

Napoleon Hill, W. Clement Stone, and Samuel A. Cypert (1990) Succeed and Grow Rich Through Persuasion

Judith Williamson and Napoleon Hill (2011) Napoleon Hill’s Timeless Thoughts for Today

Napoleon Hill, Josh Wexelbaum, and Nick Brodka (2014) The Wisdom of Success: The Wisdom of Andrew Carnegie as Told to Napoleon Hill

Napoleon Hill Foundation Napoleon Hill – Thought For The Day

http://www.naphill.org/posts/category/tftd/tftd-tftd/