Dear all,

Over the years, I have kept a file full of notes and inspiring quotes on success and achievement. Recently I revisited this file. Many of the writings no longer apply to my belief system--for instance, a lot of the quotes were quite action-oriented. However, I did come across a few gems which I only now realize (after my education on Inward Quest), prove beyond a doubt the power of belief and positive expectation.

I've pasted the best ones below. I think the inspiring thing about these incidents is that they already happened to people who are now known across the entire world, and the proof of their positive expectation is available in the open-source historical literature.

Please add to these anecdotes to any you may have heard of or come across yourself. My hope is that this can become a page of inspiration, which we can revisit anytime we began to experience doubt in our manifesting processes. The proof is right here!

Thanks, and all the best.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN:

Among those whom Lincoln served in Indiana as " hired boy" was Josiah Crawford, a well-to-do farmer living near Gentryville. Mr. Crawford owned a copy of Weems's "Life of Washington," a precious book in those days, and Lincoln borrowed it to read. "Late in the night, before going to rest, he placed the borrowed book in his only bookcase, the opening between two logs of the walls of the cabin, and retired to dream of its contents. During the night it rained; the water dripping over the ' mud-daubing' onto the book stained the leaves and warped the binding. Abe valued the book in proportion to the interest he had in the hero, and felt that the owner must value it beyond his ability to pay. It was with the greatest trepidation he took the book home and told the story, and asked how he might hope to make restitution. Mr. Crawford answered: 'Being as it is you, Abe, I won't be hard on you, Come over and shuck corn three days, and the book is yours.' Shuck corn three days and receive a hero's life! He felt that the owner was giving him a magnificent present. After reading the book, he used to tell the Crawfords: 'I do not always intend to delve, grub, shuck corn, split rails, and the like.' His whole mind was devoted to books, and he declared he 'was going to fit himself for a profession.' These declarations were often made to Mrs. Crawford, who took almost a mother's interest in him, and she would ask: 'What do you want to be now?' His answer was invariably: 'I'll be President.' As he was generally playing a joke on some one. she would answer: 'You'd make a purty President with all your tricks and jokes. Now, wouldn't you?' He would then declare: 'Oh, I'll study and get ready, and then the chance will come.'

-- Quoted in Ida Tarbell's The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln: Containing Many Unpublished Documents and Unpublished Reminiscences of Lincoln's Early Friends

Arnold Schwarzenegger

My father was baffled by my eagerness. "Don't do it, Arnold," he said. "You'll overtrain, you'll overwork yourself." "I'm all right," I said. "I'm doing it gradually." "Yes," he said. "But what will you do with all these muscles once you've got them?" "I want to be the best-built man in the world," I said frankly. That made him sigh and shake his head. "Then I want to go to America and be in movies. I want to be an actor." "America?" "Yes--America." "My god!" he cried. He went into the kitchen and told my mother, "I think we better go to the doctor with this one, he's sick in the head."... I'm so determined to make millions of dollars that I cannot fail. In my mind I've already made the millions; now it's just a matter of going through the motions. - p. 109

-- The Education Of A Bodybuilder By Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1977

"I knew I was a winner back in the late sixties. I knew I was destined for great things. People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way - I hope it never will." - Arnold Schwarzenegger

From an author's account of a meeting that happened in 1978:

In the book he was promoting, written long before he became a millionaire, he had said, "I'm so determined to make millions of dollars that I cannot fail. In my mind I've already made the millions; now it's just a matter of going through the motions." And it was this subject that intrigued me most. I kept asking how he knew he would succeed, and he replied, "Because I see it with my Third Eye." He pointed to his forehead as he said this, adding that he creates a movie in his mind, seeing himself reaching his goals over and over.

"I learned that technique in bodybuilding," he said, "and I'm applying it to becoming a movie star - and I have no doubt that I will become the No. 1 movie star in the world."

"You mean bigger than Robert Redford or Paul Newman?" I asked. "Oh, much bigger than those guys. I'm talking about becoming bigger than Charles Bronson!" he said, smiling that infectious smile.

http://www.wnd.com/2005/04/30104/

"You have to have a vision. And then you have to have total faith in that vision."

-- from a video interview as Governor, several years ago.

Oprah Winfrey

"As a young child, I had a vision, not of what I wanted to accomplish, but I knew that my current circumstances would change. I was raised on a farm with my grandmother for the first six years of my life -- I knew somehow that my life would be different and it would be better. I never had a clear cut vision of what it was that I would be doing. I remember absolutely physically feeling it at around four years old. I remember standing on the back porch -- it was a screened-in porch -- and my grandmother was boiling clothes because, you know, at that time, we didn't have washing machines, and so people would, you know, physically boil clothes in a great big iron pot. She was boiling clothes and poking them down. And I was watching her from the back porch, and I was four years old and I remember thinking, "My life won't be like this. My life won't be like this, it will be better." And it wasn't from a place of arrogance, it was just a place of knowing that things could be different for me somehow. I don't know what made me think that."

-- Oprah Winfrey, Interview, 2/21/1991, Academy of Achievement

"I always knew I'd be a millionaire by age thirty-two. In fact, I am going to be the richest black woman in America."

-- Oprah Winfrey, 1987

ADDED 11-11-2012

And here is a great video of Oprah explaining how she used "the secret" to attain success:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0wYxh-akZs

Paul McCartney

"We knew we were good. People used to say to us, 'Do you think John and you are good songwriters?' and I'd say-- "Yeah it may sound conceited but it would be stupid of me to say 'No, I don't,' or 'Well, we're not bad' because we are good." Let's face it. If you were in my position, which was working with John Lennon, who was a great, great man -- It's like that film 'Little Big Man.' He says, 'We wasn't just playing Indians, we was LIVIN' Indians.' And that's what it was. I wasn't just talking about it, I was living it. I was actually working with the great John Lennon, and he with me. It was very exciting."

-- Paul McCartney on his early years, from a CNN interview in 1988

Jim Henson

A driver was talking to me today asking, "Did you ever, in your wildest dreams, think you would have success like this?" The honest answer to this, which I do occasionally admit, is that yes, I've always known I would be very successful in anything I decided to do--and it turned out to be puppetry.

-- Jim Henson, It's Not Easy Being Green, p. 68

Martin Sheen

"I knew I was going to be a professional actor and I had no doubt about success, not even once in my life. I never doubted it...We lived in a rat-infested tenement on the Lower East Side for several years...and ate spaghetti, and I loved every minute of it. I loved it when it was happening [because] I knew success would be coming. I remember getting evicted from a place in the Bronx, thrown out into the street with my wife and child--baby, seventeen months old. And I bummed a ride to Ohio to see my father, who had never met my wife or seen my baby, and visit my brother, who was in jail, and to try to help him out of jail. It was one of the worst times and one of the best times. And I remember one of my brothers saying, 'You're a burden to our family.' And I got angry and I said, 'There is going to come a day, as surely as the sun rises tomorrow, when I will make more money in an hour than you'll make in a year. And I knew it was true. Despair, yes, but I always believed in myself. Absolutely."

-- Martin Sheen, quoted by Mark Litwak in Reel Power, 1986

Warren Buffet

"I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute. "

Jim Carrey

"I wrote myself a check for ten million dollars for acting services rendered and dated it Thanksgiving 1995. I put it in my wallet and it deteriorated. And then, just before Thanksgiving 1995, I found out I was going to make ten million dollars for Dumb & Dumber. I put that check in the casket with my father because it was our dream together."

-- Jim Carrey, Oprah Winfrey Show, 1997

Others:

"I just wanted to make a million dollars. But I couldn't sing and I couldn't play ball, so I said to my mother, 'How am I going to make a million dollars?' And she said to me, 'Son, if you believe you can do it, you will.'"

-- Chris Gardner

"When I was eight years old, I dreamed that I would one day own the best restaurant in the world. My restaurant would serve great tasting hamburgers made just the way you like them, and all of the customers would love the food and come back again and again."

-- From a school essay he wrote at age 15 entitled "The Pursuit of happiness" - Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's

"All my life I knew I would have a big business. That's what I wanted from the time I was in second grade; there was never a doubt in my mind."

-- Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinko's

[Condoleeza Rice] described a photo of her at 8, on a trip to Washington. She's in pigtails, with two missing front teeth, outside the White House gates. Her father used to tell her that back then, she said, "I may be outside these gates now, but someday I will be inside, working."

-- From her biography.

"Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity. Why would you be realistic? I'm going to do it. It's already done. The second I decide it's done, it's already done. Now I just have to wait for all of you to see...Make a choice. Just decide what it's going to be, who you're going to be, how you're going to do it. Just DECIDE! And then from that point the universe is going to get out of your way."

-- Will Smith

"Somehow I can't believe there are any heights that can't be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true...When you believe a thing, believe it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably...If you can dream it, you can do it."

-- Walt Disney

EDIT 9/10/2012 - added a few clips:

Great clip of Steve Jobs, early in his career, speaking on the "secrets of life":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYfNvmF0Bqw

Captain Sullenberger on safely landing a passenger plane in the Hudson River: "I was sure I could do it."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixUbdeXCp0M

ADDED 2/14/2014:

Tyler Perry explains the secret of his success:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmNNsOpTR94