As a Man Thinketh: You Are What You Think

James Allen was an English writer who left his office job to live simply in a seaside town and write about the power of thought.His little book As a Man Thinketh, published in 1903, takes its title from an old proverb in the Bible.It is short enough to read in an hour, yet it is still in print more than a hundred years later.

“‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.’ A person is literally what they think, and their character is the sum of all their thoughts.As a plant grows from a seed, every action grows from the hidden seed of a thought.Action is the flower of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits.

A good character is not a gift of luck. It is the natural result of right thinking, practised for a long time.In the workshop of thought we make the weapons that destroy us, and we also shape the tools that build us homes of joy, strength and peace.We are the masters of our thoughts, the makers of our character and the shapers of our lives.

Even at our weakest, we are still the master, but a foolish master runs the house badly.When we begin to watch our thoughts and notice their effects on ourselves and on others, we become wise masters.Gold and diamonds are found only by deep digging, and so is the truth about ourselves.”