Quotes from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery. Calmness is power. ”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“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.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“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.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“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.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“Cherish your visions.
Cherish your ideals.
Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts.
For out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment, of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“He who would accomplish little need sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much. He who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“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.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so shall he be”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts
and actions can never produce good results … We understand this law in
the natural world, and work with it; but few understand it in the mental
and moral world—although its operation there is just as simple and undeviating—
and they, therefore, do not cooperate with it.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances. ”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“A noble and God-like character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with God-like thoughts.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“To Desire is to Obtain to Aspire is to Achieve”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“A man becomes calm in the measure that he understands himself as a thought-evolved being. For such knowledge necessitates the understanding of others as the result of thought, and as he develops a right understanding, and sees ever more clearly the internal relations of things by the action of cause and effect, he ceases to fuss, fume, worry, and grieve. He remains poised, steadfast, serene.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“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.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“There can be no progress nor achievement without sacrifice, and a man's worldly success will be by the measure that he sacrifices his confused animal thoughts, and fixes his mind on the development of his plans, and the strengthening of his resolution and self-reliance.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“The thoughtless, the ignorant, and indolent, seeing only the apparent effects of things and not the things themselves, talk of law, of fortune, and chance. Seeing a man grow rich, they say, "How lucky is!" Observing another become intellectual they exclaim, "How highly favored he is!" And noting the saintly character and wide influence of another, they remark, "How chance aids him at every turn!" They don't see the trials and failures and the struggles which these men have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their experience; have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have exercised, that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable, and realize the vision of their heart. They do not know the darkness and the heart aches; they only see the light and the Joy, and they call it “luck”; do not see the longing arduous journey, but only behold the pleasant goal, and call it "good fortune"; do not understand the process, but only perceive the result, and call it “chance”.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“The body is the servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the mind, whether they be deliberately chosen or automatically expressed.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“Suffering is always the effect of wrong thought in some direction. It is an indication that the individual is out of harmony with himself, with the Law of his being.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“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, just as surely as deliberately planned sins (though by a different route), to failure, unhappiness, and loss, for weakness cannot persist in a power evolving universe.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“Man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“The circumstances which a man encounters with suffering are the result of his own mental inharmony.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage, these are the makers of the after-world, the architects of
heaven. The world is beautiful because they have lived; without them, laboring humanity would perish.”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

“Act is the blossom of thought; and joy and suffering are its fruits; thus does a man garner in the sweet and biter fruitage of his own husbandry”
― James Allen, quote from As a Man Thinketh: You Are Literally What You Think

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