a thought is a thing

  The ether in which this little earth floats, in which we move and have our being, is a form of energy moving at an inconceivably high rate of vibration, and that ether is filled with a rare form of universal power which ADAPTS itself to the nature of the thoughts we hold in our minds; and INFLUENCES us, in natural ways, to transmute our thoughts into their physical equivalent.

...this power makes no attempt to discriminate between destructive thoughts and constructive thoughts, that it will urge us to translate into physical reality thoughts of poverty, just as quickly as it will influence us to act upon thoughts of riches.

...our brains become magnetized with the dominating thoughts which we hold in our minds, and... these "magnets" attract to us the forces, the people, the circumstances of life which harmonize with the nature of our dominating thoughts.

Napolean Hill circa 1937