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.

James Allen wrote As A Man Thinketh in 1904 (it was his second book) and 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.

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

James Allen believed in the power of the individual to form his own character and to create his own happiness. Allen's message is one of hope even in the midst of confusion. He said, "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