Norman Vincent Peale

God in His answers to prayer often says "Yes." Sometimes He says "Wait." Often He says "No." In any case, His will is done, and true faith is to believe that what happened has happened for the best. If one does not take that attitude, he is setting his personal desire against the wisdom of God. Oftentimes we confuse with faith merely that which we desire.

John Burroughs, one of the greatest naturalist this country ever had, said he felt that there are just two classes of people in the world. . . . By "the quick," he meant people who look at the world and see it; people who listen to the world and hear it; people who get a message from it. The quick are people who are sensitized; the send out antennae. They get the meaning of the world. In other words, they are alive, they are alert, they are vibrant. As for "the dead people, while they aren't dead physically, they are dead from the standpoint of sensitivity. They never grapple with ideas, or try new ways of doing things. They are dead in the spirit. They live on the surface.

No one can ever overcome anything until his thoughts are creative and positive.

Think positively about yourself, keep your thoughts and actions clean, ask God who made you to keep on remaking you.

Worry has been described as a spasm of the emotions, a catalyst for creating a depressed condition within a human being. Banish worry and you will permit the positive emotions of joy and happiness to rise to the surface. Worry is a condition in which the mind spasmodically clutches an idea and won't let it go. That is the reason you are never successful in telling people to quit worrying. They can't quit worrying. Their minds are in an emotional spasm. They are holding onto some obsessive idea and can't let it go. The only way to break the spasm is to insinuate another idea into this spasmodic grip, until the mind lets go of the bad idea and seizes the good idea. Since worry is an irrational thought, you must take worry apart, lay it out, dissect it, cut it up, and look at it piece by piece. Do this with cook,m collective, rational thought, and there won't be mush left of it. There is so much illusionary vapor to worry that, when it is dispelled, the reality that is left will prove to be quite small and you can handle it.

Worry is a peculiar thing. It is like a dust storm on a hot day. You can become confused and lose your way. I was in Wichita, Kansas, some time ago, when I had to fly to Cincinnati. A friend sent me in a private plane. When we were crossing the Mississippi River, the sky grew hazy. "We can't see where we're going,"I said to the pilot. He replied,"We'll go up above the haze-level." "What's the haze-level," I asked. "Ground heat, dust, and smoke combine to form the haze-level. We'll go up another thousand feet and get above it." We did and emerged into an altogether different world, clear and beautiful. The pilot commented, "Life is something like this, isn't it? Down there they are groping in the haze. Up here, we have clarity and can see our way. Next time you find yourself bogged down in anxiety and worry, say to yourself, "I will not be disturbed by this thing. I will look at it coolly and logically. I will rise above the haze-level." You will find that your worry has lost its power.

Religious faith may very well be considered a science, for it responds invariably to certain formulae. Perform the technique of faith according to the laws which have been proved workable in human experience and you will always get a result of power.

There is no sound basis upon which it may be assumed that all poor men are godly and all rich men are evil, no more than it could be assumed that all rich men are good and all poor men are bad.

The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.

When every physical and mental resource is focused, one's power to solve a problem multiplies tremendously.