Inspirational Quotes by Napoleon Hill (American Author)

Inspirational Quotations by Napoleon Hill (American Author)

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) was an early American self-help writer whose Depression-era classic Think and Grow Rich became a pop bestseller.

Born in a one-room cabin in Wise County, Virginia, Hill became a reporter at a young age. When he interviewed steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie for an assignment, Carnegie told Hill that there was a formula for success, and anyone could achieve it. Carnegie encouraged Hill to write a book about this idea.

Over the next 19 years, Hill interviewed hundreds of successful people—from businesspersons such as Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and John D. Rockefeller to politicians such as Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Joseph Stalin—and asked how they had achieved their power, fame, and fortune. Hill refined his early ideas into an accessible self-help book and published Think and Grow Rich (1937.) It was hugely successful, and continues to be so—-it has sold over 100 million copies.

Think and Grow Rich and Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends And Influence People (1936) started the positive thinking movement.

Hill is also the author of The Law of Success (1928,) The Magic Ladder to Success (1930,) and How to Raise Your Own Salary (1953.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Napoleon Hill

When you begin to think and grow rich, you will observe that riches begin with a state of mind, with definiteness of purpose, with little or no hard work. You, and every other person, ought to be interested in knowing how to acquire that state of mind which will attract riches… Observe very closely, as soon as you master the principles of this philosophy, and begin to follow the instructions for applying those principles, your financial status will begin to improve, and everything you touch will begin to transmute itself into an asset for your benefit. Impossible? Not at all!
—Napoleon Hill

Fortunate is the person who has developed the self-control to steer a straight course toward his objective in life, without being swayed from his purpose by either commendation or condemnation.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Goals, Aspirations

Faith is the head chemist of the mind.
—Napoleon Hill

Education comes from within; you get it by struggle and effort and thought.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Education, Society

Every negative event contains within it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.
—Napoleon Hill

Love is, without question, life’s greatest experience.
—Napoleon Hill

The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Success & Failure, Perseverance, Failure

Those who have cultivated the habit of persistence seem to enjoy insurance against failure… The hidden Guide lets no one enjoy great achievement without passing the persistence test. Those who can’t take it simply do not make the grade.
—Napoleon Hill

The imagination is literally the workshop wherein are fashioned all plans created by man.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Imagination

The man who does more than he is paid for will soon be paid for more than he does.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Persistence

In your search for the secret of the method, do not look for a miracle, because you will not find it. You will find only the eternal laws of nature. These laws are available to every person who has the faith and the courage to use them.
—Napoleon Hill

First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Imagination, Ideas

One thing we all know, if one does not possess persistence, one does not achieve noteworthy success in any calling.
—Napoleon Hill

Those who reach decisions promptly and definitely, know what they want, and generally get it.
—Napoleon Hill

We see men who have accumulated great fortunes, but we often recognize only their triumph, overlooking the temporary defeats which they had to surmount before “arriving”.
—Napoleon Hill

Nature yields her most profound secrets to the person who is determined to uncover them.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Nature

Anybody can wish for riches, and most people do, but only a few know that a definite plan, plus a burning desire for wealth, are the only dependable means of accumulating wealth.
—Napoleon Hill

Every human being who reaches the age of understanding of the purpose of money wishes for it. Wishing will not bring riches. But desiring riches with a state of mind that becomes an obsessions, then planning definite ways and means to acquire riches, and backing those plans with persistence which does not recognize failure, will bring riches.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Failure, Persistence, Rich

What we do not see, what most of us never suspect of existing, is the silent but irresistible power which comes to the rescue of those who fight on in the face of discouragement.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Persistence, Perseverance

Temporary defeat should mean only one thing, the certain knowledge that there is something wrong with your plan. Millions of men go through life in misery and poverty, because they lack a sound plan through which to accumulate a fortune.
—Napoleon Hill

You might well remember that nothing can bring you success but yourself.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Responsibility

Every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.
—Napoleon Hill

There is a difference between wishing for a thing and being ready to receive it. No one is ready for a thing until he believes he can acquire it. The state of mind must be belief, not mere hope or wish. Open-mindedness is essential for belief. Closed minds do not inspire faith, courage and belief.
—Napoleon Hill

No follower of this philosophy can reasonably expect to accumulate a fortune without experiencing “temporary defeat”.
—Napoleon Hill

Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together.
—Napoleon Hill

You can be anything you want to be, if you only believe with sufficient conviction and act in accordance with your faith; for whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Believe, Belief, Achievement, Faith, Dance

Capability means imagination…
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Imagination

Greatness comes to those who develop a burning desire to achieve high goals.
—Napoleon Hill

There is one weakness in people for which there is no remedy. It is the universal weakness of lack of ambition.
—Napoleon Hill

Somewhere in your make-up there lies sleeping, the seed of achievement which, if aroused and put into action, would carry you to heights, such as you may never have hoped to attain.
—Napoleon Hill

The power of thought is the ONLY thing over which any human being has complete and unquestionable control. A fact so astounding that it connotes a close relationship between the mind of Man and the source of all power, Infinite Intelligence.
—Napoleon Hill

War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow men.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Peace

The day of the “go-getter” has passed. He has been supplanted by the “go-giver”.
—Napoleon Hill

Anything the mind can conceive, and truly believe, it can achieve.
—Napoleon Hill

The greatest achievements of men, were at first, nothing but dreams of the minds of men who knew that dreams are the seedlings of all achievements. A burning desire, to be and to do, is the starting point, from which the dreamer must take off.
—Napoleon Hill

It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Helping

Do not wait; the time will never be “just right.” Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: Procrastination, Time Management, Action

There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.
—Napoleon Hill
Topics: The Mind

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

If the mind can conceive it, you can achieve it.
—Napoleon Hill