Pick Your Favorite Best Selling Self-Help Book Quote

Pick Your Favorite Best Selling Self-Help Book Quote

This article relates to Love Is a Canoe

Each chapter of Peter Herman's fictional self-help book, Marriage Is a Canoe, ends with an aphorism such as "Compromise keeps your canoe steady. Compromise and you'll never go in circles."

Publications categorized as self-help or personal development books have been among the very best-selling books for decades. Here are some quotes from some of the best-selling self-help books of all time – which would you rely on to chart the course of your life?

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (originally published in 1937): "You are the master of your destiny. You can influence, direct and control your own environment. You can make your life what you want it to be."

You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay (originally published in 1984): "I no longer choose to believe in old limitations and lack, I now choose to begin to see myself as the Universe sees me – perfect, whole, and complete."


How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (originally published in 1936): "Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person."

Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus by John Gray (originally published in 1992): "Men are motivated when they feel needed while women are motivated when they feel cherished."


The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck, (originally published in 1978): "Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love."

Filed under Reading Lists

This "beyond the book article" relates to Love Is a Canoe. It originally ran in February 2013 and has been updated for the January 2014 paperback edition. Go to magazine.