Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be. If you think yourselves strong, strong you will be.

It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds.

Every thought that we think, every deed that we do, after a certain time becomes fine, goes into seed form, so to speak, and lives in the fine body in a potential form, and after a time it emerges again and bears its results. These results condition the life of man. Thus he moulds his own life. Man is not bound by any other laws excepting those which he makes for himself.

— Swami Vivekananda (born on 12 January)

Read quotes from the works of Swami Vivekananda for more such inspiring thoughts.

You never can tell when you do an act
Just what the result will be;
But with every deed you are sowing a seed,
Though the harvest you may not see.
Each kindly act is an acorn dropped
In God’s productive soil;
You may not know, yet the tree shall grow
And shelter the brows that toil.

You never can tell what your thoughts will do
In bringing you hate or love;
For thoughts are things, and their airy wings
Are swifter than carrier doves.
They follow the law of the universe—
Each thing must create its kind;
And they speed o’er the track to bring you back
Whatever went out from your mind.

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox