Norman Vincent Peale wrote more than 46 books during his lifetime. His most popular book, The Power of Positive Thinking, was written in 1952 and has sold more than 20 million copies in 41 languages. Peale and his wife started Guideposts magazine; its circulation now tops 5 million, the largest of any religious magazine. Peale also pastored New York City’s (Manhattan) Marble Collegiate Church for 52 years (a Protestant Dutch Reformed church founded in 1628). It had 600 members when he arrived to pastor in 1932; it had over 5,000 by the time he retired in 1984. For 54 years Peale’s weekly radio program, "The Art of Living," was broadcast on NBC. His sermons were mailed to 750,000 people a month. His life was subject of a 1964 movie entitled One Man’s Way.
He was once flying on an airplane when the Captain’s voice came over the loudspeaker: ’We need to inform you that one of our engines has shut down, but the other one will enable us to complete our journey.’ Then he added, ’to reassure any of you who might be worried’ let me tell you that we have one Anglican bishop on board today.’ A woman sitting beside Peale called a stewardess over and said, ’With the greatest respect, could you please tell the Captain that I’d be much more confident if there were 1 bishop and two engines.’