James Allen Quotes

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.

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.

Mind is the master weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance.

Happiness is mental harmony; unhappiness is mental inharmony.

Whether you be man or woman you will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

All that you accomplish or fail to accomplish with your life is the direct result of your thoughts.

To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to achieve.

The will to do springs from the knowledge that we can do.

For true success ask yourself these four questions: Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now?

Our life is what our thoughts make it. A man will find that as he alters his thoughts toward things and other people, things and other people will alter towards him.

As in the rankest soil the most beautiful flowers are grown, so in the dark soil of poverty the choicest flowers of humanity have developed and bloomed.

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

They who have conquered doubt and fear have conquered failure.

Thought is the fountain of action, life and manifestation; make the fountain pure, and all will be pure.

Nature gives all, without reservation, and loses nothing; man or woman, grasping all, loses everything.

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.

The circumstances which a man encounters with suffering are the result of his own mental inharmony.

The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.

As a man thinketh in his heart, so shall he be

Above all be of single aim; have a legitimate and useful purpose, and devote yourself unreservedly to it.

Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.

Do not dwell upon the sins and mistakes of yesterday so exclusively as to have no energy and mind left for living rightly today, and do not think that the sins of yesterday can prevent you from living purely today.

A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.

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.

A man can only rise, conquer, and achieve by lifting up his thoughts.

A man is not rightly conditioned until he is a happy, healthy, and prosperous being; and happiness, health, and prosperity are the result of a harmonious adjustment of the inner with the outer of the man with his surroundings.

Rely upon your own judgment; be true to your own conscience; follow the light that is within you; all outward lights are so many will-o'-the-wisps. There will be those who tell you that you are foolish; that your judgment is faulty; that your conscience is all awry, and that the light within you is darkness; but heed them not. If what they say is true, the sooner you, as a searcher of wisdom, find it out the better, and you can only make that discovery by bringing your powers to the test. Therefore, pursue your course bravely.

Cease to be a disobedient child in the school of experience, and begin to learn, with humility and patience, the lessons that are set for your ultimate perfection.

A man remains ignorant because he loves ignorance, and chooses ignorant thoughts; a man becomes wise because he loves wisdom and chooses wise thoughts.

A man is literally what he thinks.

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.

The body is the servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the mind, whether they be deliberately chosen or automatically expressed.

The key to happiness is having dreams; the key to success is making them come true.

There can be no progress, no achievement without sacrifice.

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.

As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them.

Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.

Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery. Calmness is power.

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

Man is made or unmade by himself. In the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself. He also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace.

You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as you dominant aspiration.

He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass: environment is but his looking glass.

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.

If you would perfect your body, guard your mind.

Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts inevitably bring about right results.

It is a process of diverting one's scattered forces into one powerful channel.

Fixedness of purpose is the root of all successful efforts.

Every action and feeling is preceded by a thought.

And I may stand where health, success, and power Await my coming, if, each fleeting hour I cling to love and patience; and abide With stainlessness; and never step aside From high integrity; so shall I see At last the land of immortality.

A man has to learn that he cannot command things, but that he can command himself; that he cannot coerce the wills of others, but that he can mold and master his own will: and things serve him who serves Truth; people seek guidance of him who is master of himself.

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.

Circumstances do not make the man, they reveal him.

As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.

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.

Man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild.

Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it.

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.