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Thoughts

Exceptional Quotes

As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking.

There can be no progress, no achievement without sacrifice and a man’s worldly success will be in the measure that he sacrifices his confused animal thoughts, and fixes his mind on the development of his plans, and the strengthening of his resolution and self-reliance. And the higher he lifts his thoughts, the more manly, upright, and righteous he becomes, the greater will be his success, the more blessed and enduring will be his achievements.

Table of Contents

• 00: Forward
• 01: Thought and Character
• 02: Effect of Thought on Circumstances
• 03: Effect of Thought on Health and the Body
• 04: Thought and Purpose
• 05: The Thought-Factor in Achievement
• 06: Visions and Ideals
• 07: Serenity

page 2:

“Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes, 
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes 
The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills, 
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:-- 
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass: 
Environment is but his looking-glass.” 

· Forward

page 4:

• [This book] 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

· Chapter 1 - Thought and Character

page 5:

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

• 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.

• Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits;

page 6:

• A noble and Godlike character is not a thing of favour or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, …

• As a being of Power, Intelligence, and Love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation and contains within himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills.

• Man is always the master even in his weaker and most abandoned state

• When he begins to reflect upon his condition, and to search diligently for the Law upon which his being is established, he then becomes the wise master

• Such is the conscious -master and man can only thus become by discovering -within himself -the laws of thought; which discovery is totally a matter of application, self analysis, and experience.

page 7:

• if he will watch, control, and alter his thoughts tracing their effects upon himself, upon others, and upon his life and circumstances, linking cause and effect by patient practice and investigation, and utilizing his every experience, even to the most trivial, everyday occurrence, as a means of obtaining that knowledge of himself which is Understanding, Wisdom, Power.

· Chapter 2 - Effect of Thought on Circumstances

page 8:

• Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts.

• Thought and character are one 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.

page 9:

• man is where he is that he may learn that he may grow

• when he realizes that he is a creative power, and that he may command the hidden soil and seeds of his being out of which circumstances grow, he then becomes the rightful master of himself.

• … alteration in his circumstances has been in exact ratio with his altered mental condition.

• Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit.

page 10:

• As the reaper of his own harvest, man learns both by suffering and bliss.

• Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself

page 11:

• His wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with his thoughts and actions.

• Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. The man who does not shrink from self-crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the object upon which his heart is set.

page 12:

• Circumstances, however, are so complicated, thought is so deeply rooted, and the conditions of happiness vary so, vastly with individuals, that a man’s entire soul-condition (although it may be known to himself) cannot be judged by another from the external aspect of his life alone.

page 13:

• It is pleasing to human vanity to believe that one suffers because of one’s virtue; but not until a man has extirpated every sickly, bitter, and impure thought from his mind, and washed every sinful stain from his soul, can he be in a position to know and declare that his sufferings are the result of his good, and not of his bad qualities; and on the way to, yet long before he has reached, that supreme perfection, he will have found, working in his mind and life, the Great Law which is absolutely just, and which cannot, therefore, give good for evil, evil for good. Possessed of such knowledge, he will then know, looking back upon his past ignorance and blindness, that his life is, and always was, justly ordered, and that all his past experiences, good and bad, were the equitable outworking of his evolving, yet unevolved self.

• The sole and supreme use of suffering is to purify, to burn out all that is useless and impure.

page 14:

• Blessedness, not material possessions, is the measure of right thought; wretchedness, not lack of material possessions, is the measure of wrong thought.

• ceases to kick against circumstances, but begins to -use- them as aids to his more rapid progress

· Chapter 3 - Effect of Thought on Health and the Body

page 18:

• The body is the servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the mind, whether they be deliberately chosen or automatically expressed.

• Out of a clean heart comes a clean life and a clean body. Out of a defiled mind proceeds a defiled life and a corrupt body.

· Chapter 4 - Thought and Purpose

page 21:

• A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thoughts.

• Even if he fails again and again to accomplish his purpose (as he necessarily must until weakness is overcome), the -strength of character gained- will be the measure of -his true- success, and this will form a new starting-point for future power and triumph.

• As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking.

· Chapter 5 - The Thought-Factor in Achievement

page 24:

• A man’s weakness and strength, purity and impurity, are his own, and not another man’s; they are brought about by himself, and not by another; and they can only be altered by himself, never by another.

• As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.

• A strong man cannot help a weaker unless that 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.

• The truth is that oppressor and slave are co-operators in ignorance, and, while seeming to afflict each other, are in reality afflicting themselves. A perfect Knowledge perceives the action of law in the weakness of the oppressed and the misapplied power of the oppressor;

page 25:

• He who has conquered weakness, and has put away all selfish thoughts, belongs neither to oppressor nor oppressed. He is free.

• Before a man can achieve anything, even in worldly things, he must lift his thoughts above slavish animal indulgence.

• There can be no progress, no achievement without sacrifice and a man’s worldly success will be in the measure that he sacrifices his confused animal thoughts, and fixes his mind on the development of his plans, and the strengthening of his resolution and self-reliance. And the higher he lifts his thoughts, the more manly, upright, and righteous he becomes, the greater will be his success, the more blessed and enduring will be his achievements.

page 26:

• Intellectual achievements are the result of thought consecrated to the search for knowledge, or for the beautiful and true in life and nature. Such achievements may be sometimes connected with vanity and ambition, but they are not the outcome of those characteristics; they are the natural outgrowth of long and arduous effort, and of pure and unselfish thoughts.

• Spiritual achievements are the consummation of holy aspirations. He who lives constantly in the conception of noble and lofty thoughts, who dwells upon all that is pure and unselfish, will, as surely as the sun reaches its zenith and the moon its full, become wise and noble in character, and rise into a position of influence and blessedness.

• A man may rise to high success in the world, and even to lofty altitudes in the spiritual realm, and again descend into weakness and wretchedness by allowing arrogant, selfish, and corrupt thoughts to take possession of him.

page 27:

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

· Chapter 6 - Visions and Ideals

page 30:

• The thoughtless, the ignorant, and the indolent, seeing only the apparent effects of things and not the things themselves, talk of luck, of fortune, and chance. Seeing a man grow rich, they say, “How lucky he is!” Observing another become intellectual, they exclaim, “How highly favoured he is!” And noting the saintly character and wide influence of another, they remark, “How chance aids him at every turn!” They do not see the trials and failures and struggles which these men have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their experience; have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have exercised, that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable, and realize the Vision of their heart.

· Chapter 7 - Serenity

page 33:

• How insignificant mere money seeking looks in comparison with a serene lifea life that dwells in the ocean of Truth, beneath the waves, beyond the reach of tempests, in the Eternal Calm!