More from and about
James Allen
(biographical info at bottom of page)

  

You are today where your thoughts have brought you;
you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.

   

We only begins to be real people when we cease to whine and revile, and commence to search for the hidden justice which regulates our lives. And as we adapt our minds to that regulating factor, we cease to accuse others as the cause of our condition, and build ourselves up in strong and noble thoughts; cease to kick against circumstances, but begin to use them as aids to our more rapid progress, and as a means of the hidden powers and possibilities within ourselves.
  
  
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.

      
One who would accomplish little need sacrifice little; one who would achieve much must sacrifice much. One who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.
  
   A person'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.
   Just as gardeners cultivate their plots, keeping them free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which they require, so may a person tend the garden of his or her mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts.  By pursuing this process, a person sooner or later discovers that he or she is the master-gardener of his or her own soul, the director of his or her own life.
   

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.

     

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.
Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be;
your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.

   

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Our life is what our thoughts make it.  One will find that as one
alters his or her thoughts toward things and other people,
things and other people will alter towards him or her.

   

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

   

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.

   

    
James Allen is a literary mystery man.  His inspirational writings have influenced millions for good.  Yet today he remains almost unknown.

None of his nineteen books give a clue to his life other than to mention his place of residence - Ilfracombe, England.  His name cannot be found in a major reference work.  Not even the Library of Congress or the British Museum has much to say about him.

Who was this man who believed in the power of thought to bring fame, fortune and happiness?  Or did he, as Henry David Thoreau says, "hear a different drummer"?

James Allen never gained fame or fortune.  That much is true.  His was a quiet, unrewarded genius.  He seldom made enough money from his writings to cover expenses.

Allen was born in Leicester, Central England, November 28, 1864.  The family business failed within a few years, and in 1879 his father left for America in an effort to recoup his losses.  The elder Allen had hoped to settle in the United States, but was robbed and murdered before he could send for his family.

The financial crisis that resulted forced James to leave school at fifteen.  He eventually became a private secretary, a position that would be called "administrative assistant" today.  He worked in this capacity for several British manufacturers until 1902, when he decided to devote all his time to writing.

Unfortunately, Allen's literary career was short, lasting only nine years, until his death in 1912.  During that period he wrote nineteen books, a rich outpouring of ideas that have lived on to inspire later generations.

Soon after finishing his first book, From Poverty To Power, Allen moved to Ilfracombe, on England's southwest coast.  The little resort town with its seafront Victorian hotels and its rolling hills and winding lanes offered him the quiet atmosphere he needed to pursue his philosophical studies.

As A Man Thinketh was Allen's second book.  Despite its subsequent popularity he was dissatisfied with it.  Even though it was his most concise and eloquent work, the book that best embodied his thought, he somehow failed to recognize its value.  His wife Lily had to persuade him to publish it.

James Allen strove to live the ideal life described by Russia's great novelist and mystic Count Leo Tolstoy -- the life of voluntary poverty, manual labor and ascetic self-discipline.  Like Tolstoy, Allen sought to improve himself, be happy, and master all of the virtues.  His search for "felicity for man on earth" was typically Tolstoyan.

According to his wife, Allen "wrote when he had a message, and it became a message only when he had lived it in his own life, and knew that it was good."

His day in Ilfracombe began with a predawn walk up to the Cairn, a stony spot on the hillside overlooking his home and the sea.  He would remain there for an hour in meditation.  Then he would return to the house and spend the morning writing.  The afternoons were devoted to gardening, a pastime he enjoyed.  His evenings were spent in conversation with those who were interested in his work.

A friend described Allen as "a frail-looking little man, Christ-like, with a mass of flowing black hair."

"I think of him especially in the black velvet suit he always wore in the evenings," the friend wrote.  "He would talk quietly to a small group of us then -- English, French, Austrian and Indian -- of meditation, of philosophy, of Tolstoy or Buddha, and of killing nothing, not even a mouse in the garden.

"He overawed us all a little because of his appearance, his gentle conversation, and especially because he went out to commune with God on the hills before dawn."

James Allen's philosophy became possible when liberal Protestantism discarded the stern dogma that man is sinful by nature.  It substituted for that dogma an optimistic belief in man's innate goodness and divine rationality.

This reversal of doctrine was, as William James said, the greatest revolution of the 19th Century.  It was part of a move toward a reconciliation of science and religion following Darwin's publication The Origin of Species.

Charles Darwin himself hinted at the change in belief in The Descent of Man.  In that book he wrote, "the highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts."

Allen's work embodies the influence of Protestant liberalism on the one hand and of Buddhist thought on the other.  For example, the Buddha teaches, "All that we are is the result of what we have thought."  Allen's Biblical text says, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."

Allen insists upon the power of the individual to form his own character and to create his own happiness.  "Thought and character are one," he says, "and as character can only manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance, the outer conditions of a person's life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state.  This does not mean that a man's circumstances at any given time are an indication of his entire character, but that those circumstances are so intimately connected with some vital thought element within him that, for the time being, they are indispensable to his development."

Allen starts us thinking -- even when we would rather be doing something else. He tells us how thought leads to action.  He shows us how to turn our dreams into realities.

His is a philosophy that has brought success to millions.  It is the philosophy of Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking and of Joshua Liebman's Peace of Mind.

We become spiritually rich, Allen writes, when we discover the adventure within; when we are conscious of the oneness of all life; when we know the power of meditation; when we experience kinship with nature.

Allen's message is one of hope even in the midst of confusion.  "Yes," he says, "humanity surges with uncontrolled passion, is tumultuous with ungoverned grief, is blown about by anxiety and doubt.  Only the wise man, only he whose thoughts are controlled and purified, makes the winds and the storms of the soul obey him."

"Tempest-tossed souls," Allen continues, "wherever you may be, under whatsoever conditions you may life, know this -- in the ocean of life the isles of blessedness are smiling and the sunny shore of your ideal awaits your coming."

And thus Allen teaches two essential truths:  today we are where our thoughts have taken us, and we are the architects -- for better or worse -- of our futures.

  

    

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Yes, life can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's actually rather dependable and reliable.  Some principles apply to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning.  I use it a lot when I teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.  What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or generous, compassionate or arrogant?  In this book, I've done my best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life, writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.  Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too!
Universal Principles of Living Life Fully.  Awareness of these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration out of the lives we lead.

        

Other people: 

Alan Watts
- Albert Einstein - Albert Schweitzer - Andy Rooney - Anne Frank
Anne Morrow Lindbergh - Anne Wilson Schaef - Annie Dillard - Anthony Robbins
Ari Kiev - Artur Rubenstein - Barbara Johnson - Benjamin Disraeli - Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Hoff - Bernie Siegel - Bertrand Russell - Betty Eadie - Booker T. Washington
Charlotte Davis Kasl
- Cheryl Richardson - Cristina Feldman - C.S. Lewis - the Dalai Lama
Dale Carnegie - Dawna MarkovaDeepak Chopra - Don Miguel Ruiz - Earl Nightingale
Elaine St. James - Eleanor Roosevelt - Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross - Ralph Waldo Emerson Emmet Fox - Frederick Buechner - George Bernard Shaw - George Santayana
George Washington Carver - Gerald Jampolsky - Harold Kushner
Harry Emerson Fosdick - Helen Keller - Henry David Thoreau - Henry James
Henry Van Dyke - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Henry Ward Beecher - Hugh Prather
Immanuel Kant
- Iyanla Vanzant - Jack Canfield - James Allen - Jennifer James - Jim Rohn
Joan Borysenko
- Joan Chittister - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - John Izzo John Ruskin
Joni Eareckson Tada
- Joseph M. Marshall III - Julia Cameron - Kent Nerburn
Khalil Gibran Leo Buscaglia - Leonard Jacobson - Leslie Levine - Lucinda Bassett
Lydia Maria Child - Lynn Grabhorn - Marcus Aurelius - Marianne Williamson
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Maya Angelou - Melody Beattie - Michael Goddart - Mitch Albom
Mohandas Gandhi
- Morrie Schwartz - Mother Teresa - M. Scott Peck - Nathaniel Branden
Nikos Kazantzakis
- Norman Cousins - Norman Vincent Peale - Og Mandino - Oprah Winfrey
Oriah
- Orison Swett Marden - Pau Casals - Peace Pilgrim - Phillips Brooks
Rabindranath Tagore
- Rachel Carson - Rachel Naomi Remen - Rainer Maria Rilke
Ralph Waldo Trine - Richard Bach - Richard Carlson - Robert Frost - Robert Fulghum
Robert Louis Stevenson
- Russell Baker - Sarah Ban Breathnach - Shakti Gawain
Soren Kierkegaard - Stephen Covey - Stephen C. Paul - Sue Patton Thoele - Susan L. Taylor
Sylvia Boorstein - Thich Nhat Hanh - Thomas Carlyle - Thomas Kinkade - Thomas Merton
Tom Walsh
- Victor Cherbuliez - Wayne Dyer - Wilferd A. Peterson - Willa Cather
William James - William Wordsworth - Zig Ziglar - Rhonda Byrne - Neale Donald Walsch
Carl Jung
- Desmond Tutu - Paulo Coelho - Jon Kabat-Zinn - Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Walt Whitman