A Quote by Norman Vincent Peale

The as if principle works. Act as if you were not afraid and you will become courageous, as if you could and you'll find you can. Act as if you like a person and you'll find a friendship.

Norman Vincent Peale

Quote Topics

Act Afraid Become Could Courageous Find Friendship Like Not Afraid Person Principle Were Will Works

Quote Author

Norman Vincent Peale
American - Priest
May 31, 1898 - December 24, 1993

If we want to be a person of integrity, we act as if we have integrity and we will be a person of integrity. If we want to be a person of charity and love, we act as if we have that characteristic and we will be that person. The Savior alluded to this principle when he asked, ‘What manner of men ought ye to be?’ Verily I say unto you, even as I am.' We should strive to become like him by acting as he would act.

Royden G. Derrick

If you want a quality, act as if you already have it. If you want to be courageous, act as if you were - and as you act and persevere in acting, so you tend to become.

Norman Vincent Peale

That was interesting, to find that it wasn't hunger that caused children to become bullies on the street. The bulliness was already in the child, and whatever the stakes were, they would find a way to act as they needed to act. … Intelligence and education, which all these children had, apparently didn't make any important difference in human nature.

Orson Scott Card

I enjoy a third act, and I like stories with ending. A lot of my frustration with serialized storytelling is a lot of shows don't have a third act. They have an endless second act, and then they find out it's their last year and often have to hustle to invent a third act, but they were never necessarily organically meaning to begin with.

Nic Pizzolatto

Yet we act as if simple cause and effect is at work. We push to find the one simple reason things have gone wrong. We look for the one action, or the one person, that created this mess. As soon as we find someone to blame, we act as if we've solved the problem.

Margaret J. Wheatley

There's just something about being on stage and being with the people that, once that camera turns on, you find the strength to keep it cool, look good, act like you're not cold, act like you ain't nervous, act like you aren't scared. I think that comes with confidence and practice.

Prince Royce

Love is the only way of knowledge, which in the act of union answers my quest. In the act of loving, of giving myself, in the act of penetrating the other person, I find myself, I discover myself, I discover us both, I discover man.

Erich Fromm

Act so that the maxim of your act could be made the principle of a universal law.

Immanuel Kant

Act as if! Act as if you're a wealthy man, rich already, and then you'll surely become rich. Act as if you have unmatched confidence and then people will surely have confidence in you. Act as if you have unmatched experience and then people will follow your advice. And act as if you are already a tremendous success, and as sure as I stand here today - you will become successful.

Jordan Belfort

I was walking around trying to act cool, like I had no fear at all. But I was afraid, afraid that somebody would find out just how scared I was. Now I'm finally realizing that fear is the opposite of love.

Stevie Ray Vaughan

I approach my life with logic. I do not act on impulse or emotion. I very seldom find that I say, 'And then I can't think what came over me, but I did this or that or the other.' I nearly always know how I will act and I nearly always act in that way. I don't catch myself out in embarrassing situations because I've acted without forethought. I calculate what I will do.

Quentin Crisp

Always strive to find out what to do by thinking, without asking anybody. If you continually do this, you will soon act like a grown-up woman. For want of doing this, a very great number of grown-up people act like children.

George Bernard Shaw

The very act of faith by which we receive Christ is an act of the utter renunciation of self, and all its works, as a ground of salvation. It is really a denial of self, and a grounding of its arms in the last citadel into which it can be driven, and is, in its principle, inclusive of every subsequent act of self-denial by which sin is forsaken or overcome.

Mark Hopkins

It likes it when you don’t depend on it. It will reward you every time you don’t act needy. It will chase you if you act like other things (passion, friendship, family, longevity) are more important to you. If your career is a bad boyfriend, it is healthy to remember you can always leave and go sleep with somebody else.

Amy Poehler

I will no longer act on the outside in a way that contradicts the truth that I hold deeply inside. I will no longer act as if I were less than the whole person I know myself inwardly to be.