Full Book Summary of As a Man Thinketh by James Allen

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There is a simple truth at the heart of As a Man Thinketh, and it is this. Your life does not rise before you by chance, nor does it fall upon you by the cruelty of blind fate. It grows from within. Thought is the hidden seed, character is the plant, and condition is the fruit. What you quietly dwell upon, what you welcome in the secret chambers of the mind, what you repeat until it becomes habit, all this shapes the whole form of your life. The outer world, which seems so solid and fixed, is shown to be closely tied to the inner world, where desire, fear, purpose, resentment, faith, and peace are first formed. This little book speaks with the confidence of a moral law. It asks you to look upon your mind as a garden. A garden, if neglected, will soon fill with weeds. A garden, if watched and tended, can bear flowers and wholesome fruit. So it is with the soul. If you permit angry, selfish, weak, or anxious thoughts to take root, they will grow into suffering, confusion, and loss. If you patiently cultivate noble, pure, brave, and loving thoughts, they will become strength of character, calmness of manner, and a life more ordered and fruitful. The book does not flatter you by saying every event is easy to control. It does something more demanding and more hopeful. It tells you that the power to begin changing your life lies close at hand, in the very thoughts you are thinking now. James Allen writes not as a lecturer who wishes to overwhelm you, but as one who quietly insists that justice runs through human life. He does not deny hardship. He does not pretend that grief, labor, poverty, or disappointment are unreal. Rather, he...