"It is psychological law that whatever we desire to accomplish we must impress upon the subjective or subconscious mind"
About this Quote
A lot of self-help has the decency to be modest; Marden goes straight for the control panel. Calling it a "psychological law" isn’t just confidence, it’s a power move: it wraps a moral lesson in the costume of science, turning aspiration into something like physics. If you fail, it’s not because the world is unequal or luck is cruel, but because you didn’t properly program the "subjective or subconscious mind". The line offers a seductive transfer of responsibility from circumstance to interior technique.
The phrasing matters. "Impress upon" suggests a stamp, a brand, an act of forceful inscription. This is less about gentle self-discovery than about mental discipline - training the hidden machinery that, in late-19th and early-20th century popular psychology, was increasingly treated as both mysterious and manageable. Marden, writing in the heyday of American uplift culture, sells the idea that the self is an enterprise: goals are outputs, the subconscious is the factory floor, and belief is the foreman.
The subtext is equal parts empowerment and blame. It comforts readers who feel stuck by promising an invisible lever: change your inner world and the outer one will comply. It also flatters the reader with proximity to expertise - "psychological law" implies you’re not wishing, you’re applying principles. That’s why it works: it doesn’t merely motivate; it legitimizes desire, reframing ambition as mental hygiene and success as the reward for correct inner messaging.
The phrasing matters. "Impress upon" suggests a stamp, a brand, an act of forceful inscription. This is less about gentle self-discovery than about mental discipline - training the hidden machinery that, in late-19th and early-20th century popular psychology, was increasingly treated as both mysterious and manageable. Marden, writing in the heyday of American uplift culture, sells the idea that the self is an enterprise: goals are outputs, the subconscious is the factory floor, and belief is the foreman.
The subtext is equal parts empowerment and blame. It comforts readers who feel stuck by promising an invisible lever: change your inner world and the outer one will comply. It also flatters the reader with proximity to expertise - "psychological law" implies you’re not wishing, you’re applying principles. That’s why it works: it doesn’t merely motivate; it legitimizes desire, reframing ambition as mental hygiene and success as the reward for correct inner messaging.
Quote Details
| Topic | Goal Setting |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by Orison
Add to List
