10 Joseph Murphy quotes, in context, and what to keep from each

How we chose and checked these quotes

Quote sites attribute many lines to Murphy that cannot be found in his books. We kept only sentences we could read in a transcription of the 1963 text, most of them cross-checked against a later revised edition, and we give the chapter rather than a page number, because pages differ between editions.

Each quote is short, 25 words or fewer, and is followed by its context and by what the research we cite elsewhere in this series says. Murphy’s books are still under copyright in Europe: read the chapters themselves for the full argument. The table gives the overview; the sections below take each quote in turn.

1. “Your subconscious mind does not argue with you. It accepts what your conscious mind decrees.”

Chapter 2, How Your Own Mind Works. Murphy’s model has two levels: a reasoning conscious mind and a subconscious that carries out whatever it is given. Hence his advice to act as a “watchman at the gate” and never to tell yourself you cannot.

Research half agrees. Psychologists such as John Bargh have argued that much of everyday behaviour runs on automatic processes. But a line the mind does not believe can backfire: in Joanne Wood and colleagues’ 2009 study, people with low self-esteem who repeated “I’m a lovable person” felt worse than those who did not.

What to keep: watch what you repeat to yourself, and choose lines you can believe, small and concrete, rather than decrees.

2. “Your desire is your prayer.”

Chapter 6, the chapter of practical techniques. Murphy first defines prayer as putting into shape an idea of something you wish to accomplish, quotes, without naming him, the first line of James Montgomery’s 1818 hymn, “Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire”, then shortens it to this.

It is a definition, not a claim research can test. It widens prayer from words addressed to God to any sincere wish, which lets readers of many faiths, or none, use it.

What to keep: name what you actually want, honestly, before working on how to get there.

3. “The easiest and most obvious way to formulate an idea is to visualize it, to see it in your mind’s eye…”

Chapter 6, under the heading “The Visualization Technique”. Murphy asks readers to picture what they want as vividly as if it were already there.

Research supports rehearsing the process more than picturing the outcome. Mental practice, rehearsing a skill in imagery, improves performance a little (r = 0.13, after publication-bias analyses) in a 2020 meta-analysis of 37 studies (Toth and colleagues). In Pham and Taylor’s 1999 study, first-year students who mentally simulated the process of studying for a midterm, rather than the good grade, studied more and earned higher grades. Picturing only the happy outcome, as a positive fantasy, predicted less effort and poorer results weeks or months later in Gabriele Oettingen and Doris Mayer’s 2002 studies.

What to keep: see it in your mind’s eye, but see yourself doing the next step, not only the finish line.

4. “The thankful heart is always close to the creative forces of the universe…”

Chapter 6, “The ‘thank-you’ Technique”. Murphy recommends thanking in advance, night and morning, for what you want, as a son thanks his father for a promised car before receiving it.

Gratitude research studies thanks for what already happened. Its effects on well-being are real but small, in Davis and colleagues’ 2016 meta-analysis: d = 0.31 against filling in the questionnaires only (5 studies), 0.14 against a comparable neutral activity (18 studies), and no difference against another active exercise (d = −0.03). No study shows that thanks changes outside events.

What to keep: the thankful mood, aimed at what is real today.

5. “Your subconscious never sleeps. It is always on the job.”

Chapter 13, on the wonders of sleep, in its summary. Murphy advises handing problems over before sleep and watching for the answer on waking, the old idea that the night brings counsel.

Sleep research partly agrees. In Wagner and colleagues’ 2004 study, more than twice as many people discovered the hidden rule that shortened a number task after eight hours of night sleep as after eight hours awake, but only if they had practised the task first.

What to keep: work on the question during the day, then let the night have it.

6. “You must choose happiness. Happiness is a habit.”

Chapter 15, on happiness, in its summary. Murphy recommends a morning resolution to choose happiness and giving thanks several times a day.

Habit research gives the second sentence a precise meaning. Habits form when the same action is repeated in the same context: in Phillippa Lally’s 2010 study of 96 volunteers, the time for a daily action to reach its plateau of automaticity was a median of 66 days, with a range of 18 to 254 (the longest estimates extrapolated beyond the 12-week study). Happiness itself is not one action, but the small acts around it can become habits.

What to keep: pick one small, pleasant act, tie it to the same moment each day, and give it weeks, not days.

7. “Become emotionally mature and permit other people to differ from you.”

Chapter 16, on harmonious human relations, in its summary, which goes on to say that one can disagree without being disagreeable. In the same chapter, Murphy warns against becoming a “doormat”.

This is everyday wisdom rather than a testable claim. Research on couples adds a practical angle: in Shelly Gable and colleagues’ 2004 studies, people whose partners responded to their good news in an active-constructive way, with interest and enthusiasm, reported more satisfaction and intimacy; these were correlational studies.

What to keep: let others differ, and respond warmly when they share something good.

8. “To forgive is to give something for.”

Chapter 17, on forgiveness, in its summary. Murphy plays on the word: forgiving means giving goodwill in place of resentment, until thinking of the person leaves no sting.

Forgiveness has been studied as a skill. In a 2014 meta-analysis led by Nathaniel Wade (54 reports, 2,323 participants), structured forgiveness programmes helped people forgive more than no programme (a standardised effect of 0.56) and more than other approaches (0.45). Every programme was led by a professional, and longer ones, counted in hours of work, helped more: this is guided work across several sessions, not a single resolution.

What to keep: forgiveness as something you practise over time, step by step, not a feeling you must produce at once.

9. “Habit is the function of your subconscious mind.”

Chapter 18, on removing mental blocks, repeated in its summary. Murphy explains habits as patterns impressed by repetition, and advises bringing a wandering attention back to the goal.

Modern habit research says something close in other words. Wendy Wood and David Neal describe habits as links between a context and a response, learned slowly through repetition, that then run without a goal in mind.

What to keep: change the context and repeat the new response; an intention alone tends to lose against a familiar cue.

10. “Look at your fears; hold them up to the light of reason. Learn to laugh at your fears.”

Chapter 19, on removing fear, in its summary. Murphy also quotes Emerson’s advice to do the thing you are afraid of, and recommends rehearsing it in the mind first.

Research supports looking rather than pushing away. In Daniel Wegner’s 1987 experiments, people told not to think of a white bear thought of it more afterwards. Postponing worries to a set time and place each day, a technique researchers call stimulus control, reduced worry more than control conditions in studies by Thomas Borkovec’s team in 1983 and by McGowan and Behar in 2013 (53 people prone to heavy worry, two weeks, a daily 30-minute worry period).

What to keep: name the fear and examine it at a chosen time; laughter can follow, but it does not have to come first.

Questions people ask next