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In "The Miracles of Right Thought," Orison Swett Marden delves into the transformative power of positive thinking and the significance of mental attitudes in shaping one's destiny. Written in the late 19th century, this work embodies the essence of the New Thought movement, which emphasized the connection between the mind and the external world. Marden employs an engaging and motivational literary style, weaving together philosophical insights with practical advice, encouraging readers to cultivate an optimistic mindset as a cornerstone for achieving personal and professional success. Orison Swett Marden, a pioneering figure in the self-help genre and a proponent of the positive mental attitude philosophy, drew upon his own experiences of overcoming adversity. Marden faced numerous hardships in his youth, including poverty and the death of his father, which fostered his belief in the ability of individuals to change their circumstances through willpower and optimism. His background in the publishing industry and a deep connection with the metaphysical currents of his time positioned him uniquely to promote these ideals. "The Miracles of Right Thought" is highly recommended for readers seeking inspiration and guidance on cultivating a positive mindset. Marden's principles remain timeless, making the book a vital resource for anyone aspiring to lead a more fulfilling life through the power of right thinking and self-empowerment. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
Beginning from a bracing conviction, The Miracles of Right Thought contends that disciplined, constructive thinking can reshape character, guide conduct under pressure, and steadily enlarge the possibilities of everyday life through deliberate mental habits aligned with purposeful action.
Written by Orison Swett Marden, a prominent American voice in inspirational nonfiction, The Miracles of Right Thought belongs to the self-help tradition that flourished from the late nineteenth into the early twentieth century. Though not a work of fiction and therefore without a conventional setting, it is firmly situated in the era’s culture of personal improvement and character-building. Readers encounter a guide that speaks from its historical moment yet aims for timeless application, calling attention to how thought patterns influence choices, habits, and outcomes in practical, observable ways.
The book offers an experience that is exhortative and pragmatic rather than theoretical, inviting readers to test its counsel in daily decisions. Its chapters move from principles to practice, emphasizing clarity of purpose, steadiness of will, and the selection of thoughts that nourish courage and integrity. The voice is confident, encouraging, and morally earnest, favoring clear statements and illustrative reasoning over abstraction. Without relying on technical jargon, it outlines a method of inner governance: notice what one thinks, choose what one will dwell on, and allow those choices to shape behavior and aspirations over time.
Central themes include personal agency, the alignment of ideals with action, and the cumulative power of attention. Marden underscores that thoughts are not idle; they predispose conduct, set expectations, and gradually form character. The book insists on the dignity of effort and the value of self-command, portraying inner life as the workshop where outer results are first designed. Its emphasis is practical rather than speculative, encouraging readers to cultivate mental habits that elevate standards, strengthen resilience, and make one reliable in work, friendship, and citizenship.
For contemporary readers, the book’s relevance lies in its lucid case for intentional focus amid distraction and doubt. Its questions—What will you attend to? How will you convert intention into steady practice?—speak to challenges of the present as much as its original era. The text invites a mindset attuned to growth, consistency, and ethical aspiration, suggesting that the quality of one’s thinking shapes the quality of one’s days. It does not promise effortless change; rather, it connects mental discipline to incremental progress, making the pursuit of better habits feel both attainable and consequential.
Stylistically, the prose is direct and uplifting, combining warmth with firmness. Marden addresses readers as capable agents, neither minimizing difficulty nor indulging defeatism. The rhythm of the argument is cumulative: ideas about purpose, self-respect, and perseverance reinforce one another until they cohere as a practical philosophy of living. The book’s mood is hopeful, yet it anchors hope in work—an optimism that grows from clarity, repetition of right effort, and the refusal to give energy to weakening thoughts. In this way, it blends encouragement with accountability and offers guidance without condescension.
Approached as a companion for reflective reading, The Miracles of Right Thought lends itself to note-taking, meditation, and application in small, consistent steps. It will appeal to readers of personal development, educators and mentors interested in character formation, and anyone seeking a principled framework for navigating ambition, uncertainty, and change. By urging readers to choose their thoughts with care and link them to purposeful action, Marden offers a disciplined optimism that is both humane and practical—an invitation to cultivate an inward standard that, over time, remakes outward life.
The Miracles of Right Thought presents Orison Swett Marden’s central claim that thought is a creative power shaping character, circumstances, and destiny. He contends that by directing the mind toward constructive, courageous, and morally sound ideas, individuals can transform their lives. The book opens by defining right thought as disciplined, purposeful thinking aligned with high ideals and confidence in a benevolent order. Marden outlines the practical scope of his program, promising benefits to health, happiness, and success. He employs anecdotes, brief biographies, and maxims to illustrate that mental attitude is decisive in both adversity and opportunity, setting the foundation for the chapters that follow.
Marden advances the idea of a dominant ideal, urging readers to fix the mind on a clear, elevating purpose. He argues that a vivid mental picture guides conduct, economizes effort, and attracts fitting conditions. To maintain this inner image, he recommends self-suggestion, daily affirmations, and a morning habit of claiming one’s best capabilities before work begins. He warns against mental scattering, asserting that divided attention weakens achievement. Concentration on a worthy aim, he says, turns intention into steady action. This section stresses that purpose must be ethical and serviceable, as right thought is not merely power but direction toward genuinely valuable ends.
The book next examines the formation of mental habits and the influence of environment. Marden states that the mind takes color from companions, books, and daily conversations, becoming what it most persistently contemplates. He counsels a deliberate mental diet: choose wholesome ideas, avoid cynicism and petty criticism, and cultivate uplifting reading and associations. Guarding the door of the mind functions like hygiene, preventing harmful suggestions from entering. He emphasizes that small choices and repeated acts engrave tendencies, gradually creating character. By combining watchfulness with constructive substitution, one can displace discouraging thoughts with helpful ones, building a dependable inner climate favorable to growth.
Marden assigns practical power to optimism and cheerfulness, depicting them as forces that multiply effectiveness. He describes good cheer as a social and professional asset that secures confidence, cooperation, and resilience. Discouragement, by contrast, wastes energy and blinds judgment. He recommends habits that generate buoyancy, such as gratitude, kindly speech, and a pleasant manner. These are framed not as superficial tactics but as expressions of a hopeful philosophy that sustains endurance. The chapter’s examples show how a steady, friendly spirit can open doors, neutralize friction, and steady teams in crises, reinforcing the claim that emotional tone is a pivotal factor in results.
Turning to fear, worry, and doubt, Marden calls them mental poisons that impair health and judgment. He explains how anxious brooding strains the body, confuses decisions, and paralyzes initiative. The proposed remedy includes cultivating trust in one’s powers under Providence, practicing calm attention to the immediate task, and replacing negative self-suggestions with constructive ones. He advises rest, wholesome recreation, and the habit of looking for the best possible interpretation of events. By disciplining expectation and refusing to rehearse misfortune, the mind regains balance. The overarching point is that serenity is a learned skill that protects efficiency and keeps the inner machinery in order.
The argument then centers on courage, perseverance, and the mastery of self. Marden maintains that difficulties are training, not barriers, and that failure becomes a step when interpreted rightly. He praises promptness, thoroughness, and the do it now habit as practical expressions of resolved will. Striking examples of individuals who rose from obscurity by persistent effort are used to illustrate how determination outlasts initial setbacks. He encourages readers to maintain momentum by executing the present duty superbly, thereby creating reputation and opportunity. Self-command, he says, gives continuity to effort, turning intermittent bursts into a dependable stream that carries one across obstacles.
Marden links success to service, character, and reliability. He argues that the marketplace rewards those who steadily deliver value, keep faith, and respect the interests of others. Integrity is presented as sound policy and inner necessity, building trust and enlarging influence. He emphasizes the employer’s view, noting that punctuality, accuracy, and a cooperative spirit are decisive. Thrift in time and money, clear standards of workmanship, and the habit of finishing tasks are shown as foundations of advancement. This section frames prosperity as the outcome of consistent usefulness and moral force rather than luck, aligning practical achievement with ethical commitment.
Another theme is the constructive use of imagination and ideals to refashion the self. Marden urges readers to visualize the person they intend to become and to live as closely as possible to that pattern in speech, manner, and daily choices. He advises refining tastes, choosing elevating companionships, and seeking work that harmonizes talent with service. By holding a noble ideal steadily, he says, the face, voice, and bearing gradually express the inner change, and conditions adjust accordingly. The book presents inner culture as the workshop where destiny is shaped, insisting that outward improvement reliably follows the inward blueprint.
The closing chapters gather these strands into a unified program. Right thought, consistently chosen, becomes a habit that turns possibilities into realities. The book reiterates that thought directs energy, selects associates, sets standards, and sustains health and courage. By establishing a worthy aim, arranging a healthy mental diet, practicing cheerfulness and self-suggestion, and translating intention into prompt, honest service, one builds a life of usefulness and contentment. Marden concludes that faith in the higher order and fidelity to daily duty make the seeming miracle intelligible: the mind, disciplined by ideals, quietly constructs the character and conditions that fulfill it.
Published in 1905, The Miracle of Right Thought arises from the United States’ Progressive Era, a period roughly spanning the 1890s to 1920, when rapid industrialization, urbanization, and reform coincided. Orison Swett Marden wrote and edited from Boston and New York, centers of publishing, finance, and reform journalism. The book is not set in a fictional locale; its milieu is the modern office, factory, and bustling city street, the new American workplaces created by railroads, steel, and mass production. Its intended readers were clerks, entrepreneurs, workers, and professionals navigating the opportunities and upheavals of an industrial capitalist order transforming daily life and social expectations.
The Gilded Age and early Progressive Era’s consolidation of big business established the economic canvas for Marden’s message. Between 1870 and 1913, U.S. manufacturing output surged, while urban residents rose to about 40 percent by 1900. Giants such as Standard Oil (founded 1870), Carnegie Steel (1892), and the 1901 creation of U.S. Steel symbolized new corporate power, efficiency, and, to many, unsettling monopolies. The Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) and the landmark 1904 Northern Securities Co. v. United States decision signaled a new federal willingness to regulate trusts. Marden’s emphasis on disciplined thought, cheerful persistence, and ethical ambition mirrors the era’s demand for self-controlled, opportunity-seizing individuals who could rise within or alongside large firms without succumbing to cynicism about concentrated wealth.
Financial crises tested that optimism and profoundly shaped the reception of Marden’s counsel. The Panic of 1893 triggered the collapse of more than 500 banks and some 15,000 businesses; unemployment is estimated to have peaked near one in five workers by 1894. The later Panic of 1907, sparked by the Knickerbocker Trust’s failure in New York, cascaded into a liquidity crunch until J. P. Morgan orchestrated private rescues, prompting the Aldrich-Vreeland Act (1908) and, ultimately, the Federal Reserve Act (1913). Marden launched Success magazine in 1897 amid recovery, and The Miracle of Right Thought distilled a crisis-tempered creed: steadiness of mind, confidence, and character as practical bulwarks against panic psychology, bankruptcy, and retreat in volatile markets.
Labor conflict was both ubiquitous and deadly, shaping contemporary debates about work, equity, and social order. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the Haymarket affair in Chicago (1886), the Homestead Strike in Pennsylvania (1892), and the Pullman Strike (1894) underscored the costs of wage cuts, unsafe conditions, and managerial intransigence. The American Federation of Labor formed in 1886, while the Industrial Workers of the World emerged in Chicago in 1905. Marden’s stress on personal mastery, reliability, and initiative functioned as an alternative to class confrontation, proposing advancement through competence and integrity while implicitly calling employers to enact fair dealing, sobriety, and reciprocal trust.
Mass immigration and urban crowding formed the social environment of Marden’s audience. Ellis Island opened in 1892; between 1880 and 1914, roughly 20 million newcomers entered the United States, many settling in New York, Chicago, and other burgeoning cities. Tenement laws such as New York’s 1901 statute, and exposés by reformers, targeted overcrowding and sanitation. Newcomers navigated low-wage labor markets and precarious mobility. Marden’s book speaks directly to these readers by translating the American Dream into habits of thought and self-education, framing industriousness, punctuality, and optimistic resolve as portable tools for advancement across linguistic, ethnic, and occupational boundaries.
Progressive reform reshaped the rules of business and public health, reinforcing a moral atmosphere that Marden’s advice presupposed. Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency (1901–1909) prosecuted major trusts, including Northern Securities (1904), while Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act in 1906. Child labor campaigns, led by the National Child Labor Committee (founded 1904), sought to protect minors in mills and mines. Andrew Carnegie’s 1889 Gospel of Wealth popularized moral obligations for the rich. Marden’s call for right thought dovetails with this moment: clean living, honest dealing, methodical work, and temperate habits align personal success with the era’s emerging standards of corporate responsibility and consumer protection.
The expanding infrastructure of self-education made Marden’s program actionable for ordinary readers. Land-grant colleges created by the Morrill Acts (1862, 1890) broadened technical and agricultural training; the Chautauqua movement, born in 1874 on New York’s Lake Chautauqua, took adult learning nationwide. Andrew Carnegie funded 2,509 public libraries worldwide between 1883 and 1929, about 1,689 in the United States, supplying free access to books Marden urged people to devour. Lecture circuits, YMCA classes, and night schools served clerks and apprentices. Marden’s own trajectory—from rural New Hampshire poverty (born 1848) to degrees in Boston and study at Harvard, and his founding of Success magazine in 1897—embodied the educational ladder he extolled.
As a social critique, The Miracle of Right Thought challenges the era’s determinism and class fatalism. It confronts speculative mania, vice, and defeatist talk as civic as well as personal dangers, insisting that clear aims, moral rectitude, and disciplined attention are prerequisites for trustworthy business and republican citizenship. By elevating merit over birth and habit over happenstance, it rebukes inherited privilege and corrupt patronage. Yet its solutions are deliberately nonrevolutionary, prioritizing character and self-culture over structural upheaval. In doing so, the book illuminates Progressive anxieties about inequality while arguing that mental habits and ethical conduct could narrow, rather than inflame, the period’s social divides.
The demand during its first two years for nearly an edition a month of Peace, Power, and Plenty[1], the author’s last book and its re-publication in England, Germany, and France, together with the hundreds of letters received from readers, many of whom say that it has opened up a new world of possibilities to them by enabling them to discover and make use of forces within themselves which they never before knew they possessed, all seem to be indications of a great hunger of humanity for knowledge of what we may call the new gospel of optimism and love, the philosophy of sweetness and light, which aims to show how people can put themselves beyond the possibility of self-wreckage from ignorance, deficiencies, weaknesses, and even vicious tendencies, and which promises long-looked-for relief from the slavery of poverty, limitation, ill-health, and all kinds of success and happiness enemies.
The author’s excuse for putting out this companion volume, The Miracle of Right Thought, is the hope of arousing the reader to discover the wonderful forces in the Great Within of themselves which, if they could unlock and utilize, would lift them out of the region of anxiety and worry, eliminate most, if not all, of the discords and frictions of life, and enable them to make of themselves everything they ever imagined they could and longed to become.
The book teaches the divinity of right desire; it tries to show that the Creator never mocked us with yearnings for that which we have no ability or possibility of attaining; that our heart longings and aspirations are prophecies, forerunners, indications of the existence of the obtainable reality, that there is an actual powerful creative force in our legitimate desires, in believing with all our hearts that, no matter what the seeming obstacles, we shall be what we were intended to be and do what we were made to do; in visualizing, affirming things as we would like to have them, as they ought to be; in holding the ideal of that which we wish to come true, and only that, the ideal of the man or woman we would like to become, in thinking of ourselves as absolutely perfect beings possessing superb health, a magnificent body, a vigorous constitution, and a sublime mind.
It teaches that we should strangle every idea of deficiency, imperfection, or inferiority, and however much our apparent conditions of discord, weaknesses, poverty, and ill-health may seem to contradict, cling tenaciously to our vision of perfection, to the divine image of ourselves, the ideal which the Creator intended for His children; should affirm vigorously that there can be no inferiority or depravity about the man God made, for in the truth of our being we are perfect and immortal; because our mental attitude, what we habitually think, furnishes a pattern which the life processes are constantly weaving, outpicturing in the life.
The book teaches that fear is the great human curse, that it blights more lives, makes more people unhappy and unsuccessful than any other one thing; that worry-thoughts, fear-thoughts, are so many malignant forces within us poisoning the very sources of life, destroying harmony, ruining efficiency, while the opposite thoughts heal, soothe instead of irritate, and increase efficiency and multiply mental power; that every cell in the body suffers or is a gainer, gets a life impulse or a death impulse, from every thought that enters the mind, for we tend to grow into the image of that which we think about most, love the best; that the body is really our thoughts, moods, convictions objectified, outpictured, made visible to the eye. “The Gods we worship write their names on our faces.” The face is carved from within by invisible tools; our thoughts, our moods, our emotions are the chisels.
It is the table of contents of our life history; a bulletin board upon which is advertised what has been going on inside of us.
The author believes that there is no habit which will bring so much of value to the life as that of always carrying an optimistic, hopeful attitude of really expecting that things are going to turn out well with us and not ill, that we are going to succeed and not fail, are going to be happy and not miserable.
He points out that most people neutralize a large part of their efforts because their mental attitude does not correspond with their endeavor, so that although working for one thing, they are really expecting something else, and what we expect, we tend to get; that there is no philosophy or science by which an individual can arrive at the success goal when they are facing the other way, when every step they take is on the road to failure, when they talk like a failure, act like a failure, for prosperity begins in the mind and is impossible while the mental attitude is hostile to it.
No one can become prosperous while they really expect or half expect to be always poor, for holding the poverty-thought keeps them in touch with poverty-producing conditions.
The author tries to show the person who has been groping blindly after a mysterious, misunderstood God, thought to dwell in some far-off realm, that God is right inside of them, nearer to them than hands and feet, closer than their heartbeat or breath, and that they literally live, move, and have their being in Him; that man is mighty or weak, successful or unsuccessful, harmonious or discordant, in proportion to the completeness of his conscious oneness with the Power that made him, heals his wounds and hurts, and sustains him every minute of his existence; that there is but one creative principle running through the universe, one life, one truth, one reality; that this power is divinely beneficent, that we are a necessary, inseparable part of this great principle-current which is running God-ward.
The book teaches that everybody ought to be happier than the happiest of us are now; that our lives were intended to be infinitely richer and more abundant than at present; that we should have plenty of everything which is good for us; that the lack of anything which is really necessary and desirable does not fit the constitution of any right-living human being, and that we shorten our lives very materially through our own false thinking, our bad living, and our old-age convictions, and that to be happy and attain the highest efficiency, one must harmonize with the best, the highest thing in them.
O. S. M. (December 1910.)
And longing molds in clay what Life carves in the marble real,
Your ambition, not your worded prayer, is your real creed. —Lowell[2].
No joy for which thy hungering soul has panted,
No hope it cherishes through waiting years,
But, if thou dost deserve it, shall be granted;
For with each passionate wish the blessing nears.
The thing thou cravest so waits in the distance,
Wrapt in the silence unseen and dumb
Essential to thy soul and thy existence,
Live worthy of it, call, and it shall come. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox[3].
Whatever the soul is taught to expect, that it will build.
Our heart longings, our soul aspirations, are something more than mere vaporings of the imagination or idle dreams. They are prophecies, predictions, couriers, forerunners of things which can become realities. They are indicators of our possibilities. They measure the height of our aim, the range of our efficiency.
What we yearn for, earnestly desire and strive to bring about, tends to become a reality.[1q] Our ideals are the foreshadowing outlines of realities behind them—the substance of the things hoped for.
The sculptor knows that his ideal is not a mere fantasy of his imagination, but that it is a prophecy, a foreshadowing of that which will carve itself in “marble real”
When we begin to desire a thing, to yearn for it with all our hearts, we begin to establish relationship with it in proportion to the strength and persistency of our longing and intelligent effort to realize it.
The trouble with us is that we live too much in the material side of life, and not enough in the ideal. We should learn to live mentally in the ideal which we wish to make real. If we want, for example, to keep young, we should live in the mental state of youth; to be beautiful, we should live more in the mental state of beauty.
The advantage of living in the ideal is that all imperfections, physical, mental, and moral, are eliminated. We cannot see old age because old age is incompleteness, decrepitude, and these qualities cannot exist in the ideal. In the ideal, everything is youthful and beautiful; there is no suggestion of decay, of ugliness. The habit of living in the ideal, therefore, helps us wonderfully because it gives a perpetual pattern of the perfection for which we are striving. It increases hope and faith in our ultimate perfection and divinity, because in our vision we see glimpses of the reality which we instinctively feel must sometime, somewhere, be ours.
The habit of thinking and asserting things as we would like to have them, or as they ought to be, and of stoutly claiming our wholeness or completeness—believing that we cannot lack any good thing because we are one with the All Good,—supplies the pattern which the life-processes within us will reproduce.
Keep constantly in your mind the ideal of the man or woman you would like to become. Hold the ideal of your efficiency and wholeness, and instantly strangle every disease image or suggestion of inferiority. Never allow yourself to dwell upon your weaknesses, deficiencies, or failures. Holding firmly the ideal and struggling vigorously to attain it will help you to realize it.
There is a tremendous power in the habit of expectancy, of believing that we shall realize our ambition; that our dreams will come true.
There is no more uplifting habit than that of bearing a hopeful attitude, of believing that things are going to turn out well and not ill; that we are going to succeed and not fail; that no matter what mayor may not happen, we are going to be happy.
There is nothing else so helpful as the carrying of this optimistic, expectant attitude—the attitude which always looks for and expects the best, the highest, the happiest—and never allowing oneself to get into a pessimistic, discouraged mood.
Believe with all your heart that you will do what you were made to do. Never for an instant harbor a doubt of it. Drive it out of your mind if it seeks entrance. Entertain only the friend thoughts or ideals of the thing you are determined to achieve. Reject all thought enemies, all discouraging moods—everything which would even suggest failure or unhappiness.
It does not matter what you are trying to do or to be, always assume an expectant, hopeful, optimistic attitude regarding it. You will be surprised to see how you will grow in all your faculties, and how you will improve generally.
When the mind has once formed the habit of holding cheerful, happy, prosperous pictures, it will not be easy to form the opposite habit. If our children could only acquire this one habit, it would revolutionize our civilization very quickly and advance our life standards immeasurably. A mind so trained would always be in a condition to exercise its maximum power and overcome in harmony, unkindness and the hundred and one enemies of our peace, comfort, efficiency, and success.
The very habit of expecting that the future is full of good things for you, that you are going to be prosperous and happy, that you are going to have a fine family, a beautiful home, and are going to stand for something, is the best kind of capital with which to start life.
What we try persistently to express we tend to achieve, even though it may not seem likely or even possible. If we always try to express the ideal, the thing we would like to come true in our lives, whether it be robust health, a noble character, or a superb career, if we visualize it as vividly as possible and try with all our might to realize it, it is much more likely to come to us than if we do not.
Many people allow their desires and longings to fade out. They do not realize that the very intensity and persistency of desire increases the power to realize their dreams. The constant effort to keep the desire alive increases the capacity to realize the vision.
It does not matter how improbable or how far away this realization may seem, or how dark the prospects may be, if we visualize them as best we can, as vividly as possible, hold tenaciously to them and vigorously struggle to attain them, they will gradually become actualized, realized in the life. But a desire, a longing without endeavor, a yearning abandoned or held indifferently will vanish without realization.
It is only when desire crystallizes into resolve, however, that it is effective. It is the desire coupled with the vigorous determination to realize it that produces the creative power. It is the yearning, the longing and striving together, that produce results.
We are constantly increasing or decreasing our efficiency by the quality and character of our thoughts, emotions, and ideals. If we could always hold the ideal of wholeness and think of ourselves as perfect beings, even as He is perfect, any tendency to disease anywhere would be neutralized by this restorative healing force.
Think and say only that which you wish to become true.
