Born in 1866, the year P. P. Quimby died, some would say later that Horatio W. Dresser was Quimby reborn but the veracity of this will always remain in the Akashic records. Horation would spend much of his life editing, writing, and publishing. He learned this trade when he first worked for the editor of the New England Farmer. At this early job, he learned shorthand proof-reading, served as book-keeper and eventually became the business manager. In 1883 Horatio began a study of Emerson. In this same year George Quimby loaned his father Julius the Quimby Manuscripts which Horatio dutifully copied.

In 1884, at the age of 18, Horatio began to practice mental healing along with his parents. He travelled to Europe in 1888 and 1889, then prepared under a private tutor for entrance into Harvard, entering as a special student in 1891. His father Julius died in 1893, a shock for Horatio who dropped out of school for a time, but eventually returned to complete his A.B. degree.

His first publication came out while he was still an undergraduate. It was a lecture: The Immanent God The following year he published his first full-length book, The Power of Silence. By 1903 that book had gone through fifteen editions. Meanwhile he was doing graduate work in philosophy at Harvard, studying with William James & Josiah Royce. He received his Master's from Harvard in 1904 followed by his Doctorate in 1907. He became an assistant in the philosophy department at Harvard for several years, and enjoyed the friendship particularly of William James. This relationship was crucial to William James' insight into the New Thought movement, which he placed among "the religions of healthy-mindedness" in his classic work "Varieties of Religious Experience."