Man is Growth

We are what we eat; we are what we think.

Earl Nightingale
Widely respected as the father of modern day personal development.
Called the ideas in As A Man Thinketh the "strangest secret" – the secret being that "we become what we think about."

From As A Man Thinketh:
"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. A noble
and Godlike character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the
natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of
long-cherished association with Godlike thoughts. An ignoble and
bestial character, by the same process, is the result of the continued
harboring of groveling thoughts."

Personal Development: Act Is The Blossom of Thought

Anybody who is anybody in the personal development world tip their hat to James Allen and "As A Man Thinketh."

"Beyond the New Testament, the Old Testament and other books documenting the beliefs of the greatest religions of the world, there is one little book that impacted my life dramatically during my formative teenage years. The book is As A Man Thinketh, the most widely acclaimed...book written by James Allen, who might be likened to the Norman Vincent Peale or Earl Nightingale of the late 1800's."
Denis Waitley, author of The Psychology of Winning, the best selling audio program in the world.


From As A Man Thinketh by James Allen:

"Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits; thus does a man garner in the sweet and bitter fruitage of his own husbandry.

'Thought in the mind hath made us,
What we are By thought was wrought and built.
If a man's mind Hath evil thoughts,
Pain comes on him
As comes the wheel the ox behind....
If one endure
In purity of thought, joy follows him
As his own shadow – sure.' "

As the plant springs from... the seed.

I love the nature imagery Allen uses.

“Some books are so good and meaningful that you read them again and again. Primarily because you know the substance and content is so important that you need to be reminded of what it has to say. As A Man Thinketh, by James Allen is just such a book.” - Book Review, Michigan Chronicle

From As A Man Thinketh:

"As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them. This applies equally to those acts called'spontaneous' and 'unpremeditated' as to those, which are deliberately executed."

As A Man Thinketh: Thought and Character 1

I'm constantly amazed with the powerful testimonials about "As A Man Thinketh".

“I read As a Man Thinketh once a year for over 15 years when I was in my 20s and 30s.”
Paul J. Meyer, recognized as one of the leading self-improvement authors of all time.

From As A Man Thinketh:
"The aphorism, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he," not only embraces the whole of a man's being, but is so comprehensive as to reach out to every condition and circumstance of his life. A man is literally, what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts."

As A Man Thinketh

I love books. I love everything about them. Books are repositoriesof ideas and information. I love the writing of them, the publishing of them, the selling of them, the physical artifact of them, the technology of them. My dream is to have a bricks-and-mortar bookstore. My dream is to publish books -- to have a publishing company. I have always been fascinated with the idea of re-publishing books that exist in the public domain -- like Dover Books -- to find interesting titles to revive.

I decided to take a step toward that dream with this blog and my virtual bookstore hosted thru www.lulu.com. I want to be intsrumental in keeping ideas and information available and easy to access and acquire.

The first book I decided to publish was "As A Man Thinketh" by James Allen because it is considered by many in-the-know that it is one of the most influential personal development books ever written.

"I have personally read As a Man Thinketh over 25 times. Timeless material."
Mark Victor Hansen, co-author, the Chicken Soup books

From the Forward of As a Man Thinketh:

"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 stimulate men and women to the discovery and perception of the truth that, "They themselves are makers of themselves." by virtue of the thoughts, which they choose and encourage; that mind is the master-weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness."