As A Man Thinketh

James Allen (1864-1912)

(Paraphrased from his book written more than 100 years ago)

Thought and Character:

“As a man thinketh in his heart so he is” not only embraces the whole of a man’s being, but reaches out to every condition and circumstance of his life. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the sum of his thoughts.

A noble character is not a thing of chance, but is the result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long association with good thoughts.

An ignoble and bestial character results from the same process. Between these two extremes are all the grades of character, and man is their maker and master.

Man is made of unmade by himself. He forges tools to destroy himself or tools with which he builds for himself mansions of joy, strength, and peace. He is a being of Power, Intelligence, Love and lord of his own thoughts. Man holds the key to every situation, and contains within himself the ability to make himself what he wills.

Man is always the master, even in his weakest state. When he reflects diligently upon his condition, and searches for the purpose for which he was created, he becomes the wise master of his will and directs his thought and energies with intelligence toward fruitful issues. To become the conscious master of one’s thoughts it is a matter of application, self –analysis, and experience.

Man can find every truth connected with his being if he will dig deep into his soul. He is the maker of his character, the molder of his life, and the builder of his destiny. If he will watch and control his thoughts, recognizing their effects upon himself, upon others, and upon his circumstances, these causes and effects become part of man’s knowledge of himself. “He that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened”; for only by patience, practice, and ceaseless effort can man enter the Temple of Knowledge.

Effect of Thought on Circumstances:

A man’s mind is like a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it will, bring forth. If nothing useful is put into it, its product will be abundantly useless. Man must continuously tend to his mind, weeding out the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection fruits that are right, useful, and pure. By this process, a man sooner or later discovers that he is the master of his soul, the director of his life. He reveals to himself how the thought forces shape his character, circumstances, and destiny.

Thought and character are one. The outer conditions of a person’s life are always related to his inner state. Every man is where the thought of his character have brought him. There is no element of chance.

As a progressive and evolving being, man is where he is that he may learn and grow. Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thought bad fruit.

A man does not come to the jail by the tyranny of circumstances, but by the pathway of base thoughts and desires. A pure minded man does not fall suddenly into crime by stress of external force.

Circumstances do not make the man; it reveals him to himself. Man is the shaper and author of his environment. Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.

Man is manacled only by himself. Thought and action are the jailers of Fate. They imprison, and they are also the angels of Freedom. They also liberate. Not what he wishes and prays for does he get, but what he justly earns.

Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are often unwilling to improve themselves. Good thought and actions never produce bad results. Bad thought and actions never produce good results. It is easy to understand this law in the natural world, but few understand it in the mental and moral world. 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 as 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. He ceases to fight against circumstances and begins to use them as a means of discovering the hidden powers and possibilities within himself. Law, not confusion, is the dominating principle in the universe. Justice, not injustice, is the substance of life.

Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot. It crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance. Thoughts of fear, doubt, and indecision crystallize into weak, unmanly, and irresolute habits, which solidify into circumstances of failure, indigence, and slavish dependence. Lazy thoughts crystallize in to habits of uncleanness and dishonesty, which solidify into circumstances of foulness and beggary. Hateful and condemnatory thoughts crystallize into habits of accusation and violence, which solidify into circumstances of injury and persecution.

Thoughts of courage, self-reliance, and decision crystallize into manly habits, which solidify into circumstances of success, plenty, and freedom.

A particular train of thought persisted in, is it good or bad, and cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thought, and so indirectly shape his circumstances.

Effect of Thought on Health and Body

The body is the servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the mind. Disease and health, like circumstances, are rooted in thought. Sickly thoughts will express themselves through a sickly body. Thoughts of fear are continually killing thousands of people. People who live in fear of a disease are the people who often get it. Anxiety quickly demoralizes the body, and lays it open to the entrance of disease; impure thoughts, can shatter the nervous system.

Strong, pure, and happy thoughts build up the body. A clean heart produces a clean life and a clean body. A defiled mind precedes a defiled life and a corrupt body. On the faces of the aged there are wrinkles made by sympathy, others by strong and pure thought, others are carved by passion. Who cannot distinguish them? With those who have lived righteously, age is calm, peaceful, and softly mellowed lake the setting sun.

There is no physician like cheerful thought for dissipating the ills of the body; there is no comforter to compare with good will for dispersing the shadows of grief and sorrow. To live continually in thoughts of ill will, cynicism, suspicion, and envy, is to be confined in a self-made prison. To dwell day by day in thoughts of peace toward every creature will bring abounding peace to their possessor.

Thought and Purpose

Until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment. Aimlessness is a vise, and drifting must not continue for him who would steer clear of catastrophe and destruction.

They who have no central purpose in their life fall an easy prey to petty worries, fears, troubles, and self-pitying, all of which are indications of weakness, which lead surly to failure, unhappiness, and loss, for weakness cannot persist in a power-evolving universe.

A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thought. He should steadily focus his thought forces upon the object, which he has set before him. He should make his purpose his supreme duty, and should devote himself to its attainment. Not allowing his thought to wander away into fantasies, longings, and imaginings. Even if he fails again and again to accomplish his purpose the strength of character gained will be the measure of his true success, and this will form a new starting point for future power and triumph. 

Thoughts of doubt and fear accomplish nothing, and never can. They always lead to failure. The will to do springs from the knowledge that we can do. Doubt and fear are the great enemies of knowledge, and he who encourages them, who does not slay them, thwarts himself at every step.

He how has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure. His every thought is allied with power, and all difficulties are bravely met and wisely overcome. His purposes are seasonably planted, and they bring forth fruit, which does not fall prematurely to the ground.

The Thought-Factor in Achievement

All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts. In a justly ordered universe individual responsibility must be absolute. A man’s weakness and strength, purity and impurity, are his own. They can only be altered by him; never another. His condition is his own. His suffering and happiness are evolved from within. As he thinks, so he is; a she continues to think, so he remains.

A strong man cannot help a weaker unless the weaker is willing to be helped, and even then the weak man must become strong of himself. He must, by his own efforts, develop the strength, which he admires in another. None but himself can alter his condition.

It has been usual for men to think and to say, “Many men are slaves because one is an oppressor; let us hate the oppressor.” There are a few that would reverse this judgment, and to say, “One man is an oppressor and many are slaves; let us despise the slaves.” The truth is that oppressor and slave are cooperators in ignorance, and, while seeming to afflict each other are in reality afflicting them. A perfect knowledge perceives the action of law in the weakness of the oppressed and the misapplied power of the oppressor. A perfect love, seeing the suffering, which both states entail, condemns neither. A perfect Compassion embraces both oppressor and the oppressed. He who has conquered weakness belongs neither to oppressor nor oppressed. He is free.

A man can only rise, conquer, and achieve by lifting up his thoughts. He can only remain weak, abject, and miserable by refusing to lift up his thoughts.

There can be no progress, no achievement without sacrifice. A man’s worldly success will be in the measure that he sacrifices his useless thoughts, and fixes his mind on the development of his plans.

The universe does no favor the greedy the dishonest, the vicious, although on the surface it may sometimes appear to do so. Intellectual achievements are the result of thought consecrated to the search for knowledge, or for the truth in life and nature.

Victories attained by right thought can only be maintained by watchfulness. Many give way when success is assured, and rapidly fall back into failure.

All achievements, whether in the business, intellectual, or spiritual world, are the result of definitely directed thought. Are government by the same law and are of the same method; the only difference lies in the object of attainment.

He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little. He who would achieve much must sacrifice much. He who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly

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