"Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession"
About this Quote
The key phrase is "burning obsession", a dramatic escalation that turns a private wish into something closer to a crusade. Hill isn’t describing calm goal-setting; he’s prescribing a psychological state. The subtext is that ordinary desire is cheap and common, while obsession is a scarce resource that separates winners from the merely hopeful. That scarcity is crucial to his brand of self-help: it creates a hierarchy that readers can climb, if they adopt the right internal posture.
Context matters. Hill’s work grows out of early 20th-century American success culture, when industrial capitalism and mass media were turning ambition into a consumer product. "Autosuggestion" borrows the aura of science from contemporary psychology and New Thought movements, giving mystical self-belief a more clinical wrapper. The quote functions like a bridge between spirituality and hustle: think your way into a different life, but think like a worker. It’s motivational, yes, but also disciplinary. It asks you to surveil your own attention and treat wavering as a character flaw, turning self-improvement into a full-time job.
Quote Details
| Topic | Goal Setting |
|---|---|
| Source | Think and Grow Rich — Napoleon Hill, 1937. Appears in the chapter titled "Autosuggestion" (commonly cited line from Hill's discussion of concentrating desire into a burning obsession). |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Hill, Napoleon. (2026, January 17). Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/your-ability-to-use-the-principle-of-36279/
Chicago Style
Hill, Napoleon. "Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/your-ability-to-use-the-principle-of-36279/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/your-ability-to-use-the-principle-of-36279/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2026.









