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Who really said it

Believe in yourself and all that you are

Not Larson’s wording — a modern paraphrase Christian D. Larson 1874–1954 · American New Thought writer & lecturer
Disputed Free to reuse

Larson wrote the thought, but not the sentence. The famous line is a later, tidier condensation of the italic epigraph standing before Chapter IV of his Your Forces and How to Use Them (Thomas Y. Crowell, 1912), where the words actually run “Believe in yourself but not simply in a part of yourself… Know that you have something within you that is greater than any obstacle, circumstance or difficulty that you can possibly meet.”

Last verified 15 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed wording — copy with the correction

“Believe in yourself and all that you are” is a modern condensation, not Christian D. Larson's words. Larson wrote, in the epigraph to Chapter IV of Your Forces and How to Use Them (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1912): "Believe in yourself but not simply in a part of yourself. Give constant recognition to all that is in you... Know that you have something within you that is greater than any obstacle, circumstance or difficulty that you can possibly meet." Via quotle.info

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Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

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In context

Evoking the world of Christian D. Larson — American New Thought writer & lecturer. Theme: "Believe in yourself and all that you are". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Believe in yourself and all that you are". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

What Larson actually wrote

Work
Your Forces and How to Use Them
Published
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1912
Passage
Italic epigraph immediately preceding Chapter IV, “The Forces of the Subconscious” (chapter opens at p. 59)
Popular wording
Not in the book — a later condensation

When you think of yourself do not think of that part of yourself that appears on the surface. That part is the smaller part and the lesser should not be pictured in mind. Think of your larger self, the immense subconscious self that is limitless both in power and in possibility. Believe in yourself but not simply in a part of yourself. Give constant recognition to all that is in you, and in that all have full faith and confidence. Give the bigger man on the inside full right of way. Believe thoroughly in your greater interior self. Know that you have something within you that is greater than any obstacle, circumstance or difficulty that you can possibly meet. Then in the full faith in this greater something, proceed with your work. The real passage, 1912

This is the whole epigraph, and you can watch the famous line being made out of it. “Believe in yourself but not simply in a part of yourself… Give constant recognition to all that is in you” becomes “Believe in yourself and all that you are.” The closing sentence keeps its shape but swaps “within” for “inside” and stops at “obstacle.” Note also that the 1912 Crowell text reads “the bigger man on the inside”; some modern reprints render this “the bigger being on the inside.”

Scanned 1912 edition
Your Forces and How to Use Them — the Harvard copy, scanned by Google
Read the 1912 Thomas Y. Crowell edition at the Internet Archive

How we verified this

  • Larson really did write a version of this — as the italic epigraph placed just before Chapter IV, “The Forces of the Subconscious,” in Your Forces and How to Use Them (Thomas Y. Crowell, 1912), preserved as the Harvard copy scanned by Google for the Internet Archive ↗. But what he wrote was “Believe in yourself but not simply in a part of yourself,” not “Believe in yourself and all that you are.”
  • A search of the full text of that edition ↗ returns no occurrence of the popular phrasing, and none of “something inside you.” The book’s own contents page places Chapter IV at p. 59; the epigraph sits on the leaf before it.
  • Wikiquote’s sourced section for Larson ↗ cites fourteen separate passages from this very book, nearly all with chapter and page — and this line is not among them, in any form.
  • The pages that spread it give the polished sentence, Larson’s name, and nothing else. PassItOn ↗ credits “Christian D. Larson, New Thought Leader” with no book, no chapter, no page — the standard shape of a quote nobody has checked.
Public domain

Your Forces and How to Use Them was published by Thomas Y. Crowell in 1912, far enough back that no U.S. copyright can still be running — which is why the Harvard copy is openly readable at the Internet Archive ↗. Larson’s actual text is free to reproduce. The condensed popular wording has no identified author or date of its own, but it is a straight trim of that public-domain passage rather than new work by anyone else.

Fact-check

Right name, wrong words

Nobody is stealing this one from Larson. The name on it is correct — it is the sentence that isn’t his.

“Believe in yourself and all that you are” Fused

Larson wrote two sentences: “Believe in yourself but not simply in a part of yourself. Give constant recognition to all that is in you, and in that all have full faith and confidence.” The popular line welds them together and deletes his qualifier. It appears nowhere in the full text of the 1912 edition ↗.

“something inside you that is greater than any obstacle” Trimmed

The original reads “something within you that is greater than any obstacle, circumstance or difficulty that you can possibly meet” — on the epigraph page before Chapter IV of the Crowell edition ↗. This half is close, but still edited.

Quote sites and social posts No source

PassItOn ↗ and Goodreads ↗ both print the line under Larson’s name with no book, chapter or page — which is precisely why the wording went unchecked against the text for so long.

The idea really is Larson’s, and it sits on one identifiable page: the epigraph to Chapter IV of Your Forces and How to Use Them ↗ (1912). The version you have seen a thousand times is somebody else’s edit of it.

Context

Why the paraphrase stuck

Larson was writing in 1912 for readers of New Thought, the American self-help movement that treated the mind as a set of forces you could learn to operate. Your Forces and How to Use Them sets each chapter behind a short italic epigraph — a page of gathered-up encouragement before the argument begins. The one before Chapter IV, “The Forces of the Subconscious,” is where this quote lives.

Read it whole and you notice Larson is being careful in a way the famous version is not. His point is not a blanket “believe in yourself” — it is that most people believe only in the small surface part of themselves, and should instead give recognition to the larger subconscious self underneath. “Believe in yourself but not simply in a part of yourself” is a warning with a hinge in it. Somewhere on the way to the poster, the hinge came out and the sentence got smooth.

Larson wrote a caution: believe in yourself — but not just a piece of yourself. The condensed version dropped the caution and kept the applause.

What the compression actually removed

The first half is a fusion. “Believe in yourself but not simply in a part of yourself. Give constant recognition to all that is in you” becomes “Believe in yourself and all that you are” — two sentences welded into one, and Larson’s qualifier deleted.

The second half is a trim. Larson wrote “something within you that is greater than any obstacle, circumstance or difficulty that you can possibly meet.” The popular line swaps “within” for “inside” and stops at “obstacle,” dropping the tail. Shorter, and it fits a square image — which is likely the whole explanation.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Growth Success

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Your Forces and How to Use Them (1912) — Harvard copyarchive.org

The Thomas Y. Crowell edition, scanned by Google from Harvard’s copy. The primary source for this page.
Full searchable text of the 1912 editionarchive.org

Search it yourself: the Chapter IV epigraph is there; “believe in yourself and all that you are” is not.
Christian D. Larson — sourced quotationsen.wikiquote.org

Fourteen passages from this same book, each with chapter and page — and no entry for the famous line.
Christian D. Larsonen.wikipedia.org

Biography: New Thought leader, influence on Ernest Holmes, and author of the poem that became the Optimist Creed.
The quote as it circulatespassiton.com

A typical example of the paraphrase in the wild: Larson’s name, no book, no page.
Goodreads quote pagegoodreads.com

254 likes and counting, still with no source named — how an unchecked wording compounds.

The man behind the idea

Who was Christian D. Larson?

Christian D. Larson

1874–1954 · American New Thought writer & lecturer

Christian Daa Larson was an American New Thought leader, teacher and famously prolific author of metaphysical self-improvement books, born in Iowa of Norwegian descent. His writing shaped Ernest Holmes, who went on to found Religious Science — which makes Larson a quiet ancestor of most modern positive-thinking literature. He is also the source of a line you almost certainly know without knowing it: the 1912 poem that became the Optimist Creed, adopted by Optimist International in 1922.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Source

Christian D. Larson, Your Forces and How to Use Them (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1912), epigraph immediately preceding chapter 4, “The Forces of the Subconscious” (chapter opens at p. 59). The popular wording — “Believe in yourself and all that you are” — does not appear anywhere in the text; the author and date of the condensation are undocumented.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Believe in yourself and all that you are’?” Last verified 15 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/believe-in-yourself-and-all-that-you-are

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