Ralph Waldo Trine (1866–1958) was one of the early teachers of the New Thought philosophy which grew in America from the Transcendentalist philosophy of Emerson and Thoreau. New Thought is actually the most ancient thought. It is the power of thought in the individual and our ability to tune in to the source of all power and inspiration, Infinite Spirit. It is based upon no fixed creed, but relies on the perpetual renewal of thought in the individual as it ultimately relates to the whole.

Excerpts: A thought—good or evil—an act, in time a habit, so runs life’s law—what you live in your thought-world, that sooner or later you will find objectified in your life.

Thought is the force underlying all. And what do we mean by this? Simply this: Your every act—every conscious act—is preceded by a thought. Your dominating thoughts determine your dominating actions. The acts repeated crystallize themselves into the habit. The aggregate of your habits is your character. Whatever, then, you would have your acts, you must look well to the character of the thought you entertain. Whatever act you would not do,—habit you would not acquire,—you must look well to it that you do not entertain the type of thought that will give birth to this act, this habit.…It is a simple psychological law that any type of thought, if entertained for a sufficient length of time, will, by and by, reach the motor tracks of the brain, and finally burst forth into action.

“Character-Building Thought Power” is in part a newly added chapter to the fifteenth and succeeding thousands of the volume “What all the World’s a-Seeking.” At the request of many who have asked that they might have it in separate from, the publishers take pleasure in presenting it also as a booklet, with some additional pages by the author.”