The James Allen Free Library

 

[home] [page top]

James Allen daily

This page offers you a daily dose of James Allen. Here you’ll find today’s entries from James Allen’s book of meditations for every day in the year and Morning and evening thoughts:


previous day - October 6th 2019 - next day


The history of a nation is the building of its deeds.

October Sixth.

AS a body is built of cells, and a house of bricks, so a man’s mind is built of thoughts. The various characters of men are none other than compounds of thoughts of varying combinations. Herein we see the deep truth of the saying, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." Individual characteristics are fixed processes of thought; that is, they are fixed in the sense that they have become an integral part of the character, that they can be only altered or removed by a protracted effort of the will, and by much self-discipline. Character is built in the same way as a tree or a house is built—namely, by the ceaseless addition of new material, and that material is thought. By the aid of millions of bricks a city is built; by the aid of millions of thoughts a character, a mind, is built.


Sixth Morning

In the pure heart there is no room left
where personal judgments and hatreds can
find lodgment, for it is filled to overflowing
with tenderness and love; it sees no evil,
and only as men succeed in seeing no evil
in others will they become free from sin,
and sorrow, and suffering.

If men only understood
That the heart that sins must sorrow,
That the hateful mind tomorrow
Reaps its barren harvest, weeping,
Starving, resting not, nor sleeping;
Tenderness would fill their being,
They would see with Pity’s seeing
If they only understood.

Sixth Evening

To stand face to face with truth; to arrive,
after innumerable wanderings and pains, at
wisdom and bliss; not to be finally defeated
and cast out, but to ultimately triumph
over every inward foe-such is man’s divine
destiny, such his glorious goal; and this,
every saint, sage, and savior has declared.

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 as 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 discovering the hidden power
and possibilities within himself.


previous day - October 6th 2019 - next day