40 Law of Attraction Quotes, Sorted by Teacher

Most law of attraction quotes online come with a name and nothing else. That makes it hard to tell whether a line comes from a 1906 New Thought book, a 2006 documentary or someone's caption last week. The quotes below are sorted by teacher, in the order they wrote, and each was checked against the original text. Where a book is free to read online, it's linked so you can see the line in context.

Where law of attraction quotes come from

The law of attraction grew out of New Thought, a 19th-century American movement built on the idea that thought shapes health and circumstance. Prentice Mulford wrote about it in the 1880s, and William Walker Atkinson put the phrase in a book title in 1906. A wave of writers followed, and a century later The Secret brought their ideas to a new audience.

These writers presented the law as a fixed rule of the universe. Read their quotes as statements of a spiritual philosophy rather than proven science; our explainer on what the law of attraction is covers what research does and doesn't support.

William Walker Atkinson, Thought Vibration (1906)

Atkinson was an American lawyer turned New Thought author and publisher. His book's full title is Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World.

1. "Like attracts like in the Thought World — as ye sow so shall ye reap."
2. "We speak learnedly of the Law of Gravitation, but ignore that equally wonderful manifestation, The Law of Attraction in the Thought World."
3. "A strong thought, or a thought long continued, will make us the center of attraction for the corresponding thought-waves of others."
4. "I believe that 'thoughts are things,' and that the Law of Attraction in the thought world will draw to one just what he desires or fears." From "My Working Creed," printed at the front of the book
5. "I believe in the I DO, as well as the I AM." Also from "My Working Creed"

Quote 5 is easy to skip past, and it's the most practical line in the book: the same creed declares "I believe in the gospel of work."

Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich (1910)

Wattles wrote one of the most direct law of attraction books, now in the public domain at Project Gutenberg.

6. "There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe."
7. "A thought, in this substance, produces the thing that is imaged by the thought."
8. "The grateful mind is constantly fixed upon the best; therefore it tends to become the best."
9. "By thought, the thing you want is brought to you; by action you receive it."
10. "You must form a clear and definite mental picture of what you want; you cannot transmit an idea unless you have it yourself."
11. "There is no labor from which most people shrink as they do from that of sustained and consecutive thought; it is the hardest work in the world."

Charles F. Haanel, The Master Key System (1912)

Haanel's 24-week correspondence course became The Master Key System. Week Eighteen is titled "The Law of Attraction."

12. "The world without is a reflection of the world within."
13. "Thought is energy. Active thought is active energy; concentrated thought is concentrated energy. Thought concentrated on a definite purpose becomes power."
14. "The law of attraction will certainly and unerringly bring to you the conditions, environment, and experiences in life, corresponding with your habitual, characteristic, predominant mental attitude."
15. "Thinking is the true business of life. Power is the result."
16. "This law is the 'Law of Attraction,' which is that Mind is creative, and will automatically correlate with its object and bring it into manifestation."
17. "All possession is based on consciousness."

Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925)

Shinn was a New York illustrator and metaphysical teacher. Her first book is on Project Gutenberg.

18. "Most people consider life a battle, but it is not a battle, it is a game."
19. "Man receives only that which he gives. The Game of Life is a game of boomerangs."
20. "Fear is only inverted faith; it is faith in evil instead of good."
21. "Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way."
22. "The imagination has been called, 'The Scissors of The Mind,' and it is ever cutting, cutting, day by day, the pictures man sees there, and sooner or later he meets his own creations in his outer world."
23. "Your word is your wand." The title of her 1928 book of affirmations

Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich (1937)

Hill's book is one of the best-selling titles in the tradition. The lines below are from a reproduction of the 1937 text.

24. "Truly, 'thoughts are things,' and powerful things at that, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a BURNING DESIRE for their translation into riches, or other material objects."
25. "The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind."
26. "Faith is the head chemist of the mind."
27. "Repetition of affirmation of orders to your subconscious mind is the only known method of voluntary development of the emotion of faith."
28. "There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge."
29. "Every adversity brings with it the seed of an equivalent advantage."

A note on Hill's most famous line: "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve" isn't the wording in the 1937 edition. The book says Edison "knew that the mind could produce ANYTHING THE MIND COULD CONCEIVE AND BELIEVE." The shorter slogan came later.

Scripture quoted by law of attraction writers

New Thought writers drew heavily on the Bible. Shinn quotes it on almost every page, and Rhonda Byrne cites this verse in The Secret.

30. "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." — Mark 11:24, King James Version

Rhonda Byrne, The Secret (2006)

Byrne's book followed her documentary of the same name. Page numbers are from the 2006 Beyond Words edition, as listed on Wikiquote.

31. "Thoughts are magnetic, and thoughts have a frequency." (p. 10)
32. "Remember that your thoughts are the primary cause of everything." (p. 30)
33. "There is a truth deep down inside of you that has been waiting for you to discover it, and that truth is this: you deserve all good things life has to offer." (p. 41)
34. "Ask once, believe you have received, and all you have to do to receive is feel good." (p. 53)
35. "Instead of focusing on the world's problems, give your attention and energy to trust, love, abundance, education and peace." (p. 153)
36. "Your power is in your thoughts, so stay awake. In other words, remember to remember." (p. 175)

Teachers from The Secret film (2006)

The film is built from short interviews with teachers. These lines are sourced on Wikiquote.

37. "What we think about and thank about, we bring about." — John Demartini
38. "When you're visualizing, when you've got that picture playing out in your mind, always and only dwell upon the end result." — Mike Dooley
39. "Learn to become still and take your attention away from what you don't want and all the emotional charge around it and place the attention on what you wish to experience." — Michael Bernard Beckwith
40. "Thoughts Become Things." — Mike Dooley's registered motto, used across his site

Reading these quotes with clear eyes

The early teachers pair thought with action more often than their modern summaries suggest. Wattles says the thing you want is received "by action." Atkinson believes in "the I DO, as well as the I AM." That's the part with research behind it: plans in the form "when X happens, I'll do Y" have a medium-to-large effect on reaching goals across 94 tests (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006).

It's also worth knowing the risk. A 2023 study of 1,023 people found that strong believers in manifestation saw themselves as more successful, but were also more drawn to risky investments and more likely to have experienced bankruptcy (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin). The data are correlational. The practical takeaway: let belief keep you going, and let judgement make the decisions.

How to use law of attraction quotes day to day

• Make one an affirmation. Rewrite it in the first person: Haanel's "Thought concentrated on a definite purpose becomes power" becomes "I focus on one clear goal each day."
• Put one on your vision board. A single line under the image keeps the board from being only a wish. Our vision board ideas include ways to pair images with words.
• Start a gratitude entry with Demartini's line. "What we think about and thank about, we bring about" makes a good prompt for three things you're thankful for.

If you'd like a daily cue, save your rewritten line in Manifestly's affirmations, where a tap-to-affirm counter and a Home Screen widget track each repetition.

Looking for lines about dreams, imagination and self-belief from writers outside New Thought, such as Thoreau, Emerson and Neville Goddard? They're in our list of manifestation quotes.