Published in 1903, ‘As a Man Thinketh’ is James Allen’s third book. It is a relatively short read comprising of just 24 pages with the author describing it as “A book that will help you to help yourself”, “A pocket companion for thoughtful people”, and “A book on the power and right application of thought.”
The book emphasizes that man is the creator and shaper of his destiny by the thoughts which he thinks. He rises and falls in exact accordance with the character of the thoughts which he entertains. His environment is the result of what he has thought and done in the past, and his circumstances in the future are being shaped and built by his present desires, aspirations, thoughts and actions. He therefore who chooses and pursues a particular line of thought, consciously builds his own destiny.
Here are some of the most notable quotes I picked from reading it.
“The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state…Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.”
“As a progressive and evolving being, man is where he is that he may learn that he may grow; and as he learns the spiritual lesson which any circumstance contains for him, it passes away and gives place to other circumstances.”
“Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit.”
“Not what he wishes and prays for does a man get, but what he justly earns. His wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with his thoughts and actions.”
“A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine and revile, and commences to search for the hidden justice which regulates his life. And he adapts his mind to that regulating factor, he ceases to accuse others as the cause of his condition, and builds himself up in strong and noble thoughts; ceases to kick against circumstances, but begins to use them as aids to his more rapid progress, and as a means of the hidden powers and possibilities within himself.”
“The dreamers are the saviors of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers.”
“Achievement, of whatever kind, is the crown of effort, the diadem of thought. By the aid of selfcontrol, resolution, purity, righteousness, and welldirected thought a man ascends; by the aid of animality, indolence, impurity, corruption, and confusion of thought a man descends.”
“Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. It is the result of long and patient effort in self-control. Its presence is an indication of ripened experience, and of a more than ordinary knowledge of the laws and operations of thought.”
