James Allen

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

“The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.”

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

“The law of harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny.”

“The very fact that you are a complainer, shows that you deserve your lot.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit.”

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

“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.”

“In a justly ordereduniverse, where loss of equipoise would mean total destruction, individual responsibility must be absolute.”

“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.”

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

“Achievement of any kind is the crown of effort,the diadem of thought.By the aid of self-control, resolution, purity, righteousness, and well-directed thought a man ascends.By the aid of animality,indolence,impurity,corruption,and confusion of thought a man descends.”

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

“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.”

“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.”

“A teacher is a sower of seed, a spiritual agriculturist, while he who teaches himself is the wise farmer of his own mental plot.”

“A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life.”

“If you real desire is to be good, there is no need to wait for the money before you do it; you can do it now, this very moment, and just where you are.”