"As long as your going to be thinking anyway, think big"
About this Quote
Trump turns thinking into a performance sport: if you have to do it, do it loudly, ambitiously, in a way that reads like destiny. The line works because it smuggles a value system into a self-help cadence. "Anyway" shrugs off contemplation as unavoidable overhead, like breathing or paying taxes. Then "think big" reframes scale as virtue. Not better, not truer, not wiser: bigger. The metric is size, because size is legible. In a culture that treats attention as currency, "big" is both strategy and brand.
The subtext is classic Trump-era deal psychology: confidence is not just internal; it's a negotiating tool. If you telegraph that your aims are maximal, you shift the terms of the room. Big goals justify big asks, big headlines, big forgiveness for failure. There's also a quiet insulation against critique. If the standard is boldness, skeptics can be dismissed as small-minded, risk-averse, jealous, or simply not built for the arena.
Context matters: coming from a businessman-turned-celebrity, the advice isn't about private cognition but public posture. It's motivational copy that doubles as ethos, aligning with the late-20th-century American faith in growth, real estate scale, and winner-take-all markets. "Think big" flatters the listener into imagining themselves as a player, while also normalizing the idea that success is mostly an attitude problem. It's inspiring on purpose, but also revealing: the world is a scoreboard, and the mind is where you start running up points.
The subtext is classic Trump-era deal psychology: confidence is not just internal; it's a negotiating tool. If you telegraph that your aims are maximal, you shift the terms of the room. Big goals justify big asks, big headlines, big forgiveness for failure. There's also a quiet insulation against critique. If the standard is boldness, skeptics can be dismissed as small-minded, risk-averse, jealous, or simply not built for the arena.
Context matters: coming from a businessman-turned-celebrity, the advice isn't about private cognition but public posture. It's motivational copy that doubles as ethos, aligning with the late-20th-century American faith in growth, real estate scale, and winner-take-all markets. "Think big" flatters the listener into imagining themselves as a player, while also normalizing the idea that success is mostly an attitude problem. It's inspiring on purpose, but also revealing: the world is a scoreboard, and the mind is where you start running up points.
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
|---|---|
| Source | Evidence: I like thinking big. I always have. To me it's very simple: if you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big. Most people think small, because most people are afraid of success, afraid of making decisions, afraid of winning. And that gives people like me a great advantage. (Page 46). The quote you provided (“As long as your going to be thinking anyway, think big”) is a shortened/paraphrased form (and often appears with the typo “your”). The earliest primary-source appearance I can substantiate is in Trump’s 1987 book (with Tony Schwartz), where the line appears as part of a longer passage on p. 46. Multiple secondary references specifically attribute the wording to p. 46 of the 1987 Random House edition, and at least one bookseller description notes the same sentence as appearing on the dust-jacket flap. I did not locate a verifiable earlier speech/interview transcript predating the 1987 publication that contains this exact wording. Other candidates (1) Trembling Quotes of Donald Trump (Sreechinth C) compilation95.0% ... And do you know what ? When I need something from them two years later , three years later , I call them , they a... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Trump, Donald. (2026, February 26). As long as your going to be thinking anyway, think big. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-long-as-your-going-to-be-thinking-anyway-think-30836/
Chicago Style
Trump, Donald. "As long as your going to be thinking anyway, think big." FixQuotes. February 26, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-long-as-your-going-to-be-thinking-anyway-think-30836/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"As long as your going to be thinking anyway, think big." FixQuotes, 26 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-long-as-your-going-to-be-thinking-anyway-think-30836/. Accessed 22 Mar. 2026.
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