Quotes from James Allen

We are built up or brought down by ourselves. Within your mind you can build a fortress of joy, strength, and peace; or you can forge the weapons of thought that will bring about your own destruction.

Men are chained to that which causes suffering because they desire to be so, because they love their chains, because they think their little dark prison of self is sweet and beautiful, and they are afraid that if they desert that prison they will lose all that is real and worth having.

that man is the master of thought, the molder of character, and the maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destiny.

The soul attracts that which it secretly harbours, that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires—and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.

Blessedness, not material possessions, is the measure of right thought; wretchedness, not lack of material possessions, is the measure of wrong thought. A man may be cursed and rich; he may be blessed and poor.

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.

Make pure thy heart, and thou wilt make thy life Rich, sweet, and beautiful, unmarred by strife ; Guard well thy mind, and, noble, strong, and free, Nothing shall harm, disturb or conquer thee ; For all thy foes are in thy heart and mind ; There also thy salvation thou wilt find.

Spiritual achievements are the consummation of holy aspirations. He

Mind is the Master-power that moulds and makes. And Man is Mind and evermore he takes The Tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills, Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills :— He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass ; Environment is but his looking-glass.

circumstances

This being so, man has but to right himself to find that the universe is right; and during the process of putting himself right he will find that as he alters his thoughts towards things and other people, things and other people will alter towards him.

If circumstances had the power to bless or harm, they would bless & harm all men alike, but the fact that the same circumstances will be alike good & bad to different souls proves that the good or bad is not in the circumstance, but only in the mind of him that encounters it.

He that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened"; for only by patience, practice, and ceaseless importunity can a man enter the door of the Temple of Knowledge.

Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes that he is a creative power, and that he may command the hidden soil and seeds of his being out of which circumstances grow, he then becomes the rightful master of himself

only he whose thoughts are controlled and purified, makes the winds and the storms of the soul obey him.

Said the divine Gautama, the Buddha, He who gives himself up to vanity, and does not give himself up to meditation, forgetting the real aim of life and grasping at pleasure, will in time envy him who has exerted himself in meditation, and he instructed his disciples in the following Five Great Meditations:--

THIS little volume (the result of meditation and experience) is not intended as an exhaustive treatise on the much-written-upon subject of the power of thought. It is suggestive rather than explanatory, its object being to

By the right choice and true application of thought, man ascends to the Divine Perfection; by the abuse and wrong application of thought, he descends below the level of the beast. Between these two extremes are all the grades of character, and man is their maker and master. Of

unchastened

Man is a growth by law, and not a creation by artifice, and cause-and-effect is as absolute and undeviating in the hidden realm of thought as in the world of visible and material things.

man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.

As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking. To

The realization of divine knowledge, selfless Love, utterly destroys the spirit of condemnation, disperses all evil, and lifts the consciousness to that height of pure vision where Love, Goodness, Justice are seen to be universal, supreme, all-conquering, indestructible.

Where is the burden which should cause unhappiness or sorrow? It does not exist. If a thing is to be done let it be done cheerfully, and not with inward groanings and lamentations. It is of the highest wisdom to embrace necessity as a friend and guide.