Page 34 - AAMT-2019 Workbook

AS A MAN THINKETH JAMES ALLEN
164 to himself. No such conditions can exist as descending into
165 vice and its attendant sufferings apart from vicious
166 inclinations; or ascending into virtue and its pure happiness
167 without the continued cultivation of virtuous aspirations;
168 and man, therefore, as the lord and master of thought, is the
169 maker of himself, the shaper and author of environment.
170 Even at birth the soul comes to its own, and through every
171 step of its earthly pilgrimage it attracts those combinations of
172 conditions which reveal itself, which are the reflections of its
173 own purity and impurity, its strength and weakness.
174 Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they
175 are. Their whims, fancies, and ambitions are thwarted at
176 every step, but their inmost thoughts and desires are fed with
177 their own food, be it foul or clean. The "divinity that shapes
178 our ends" is in ourselves; it is our very Self. Man is manacled
179 only by himself. Thought and action are the jailers of Fate -
180 they imprison, being base; they are also the angels of
181 Freedom - they liberate, being noble. Not what he wishes and
182 prays for does a man get, but what he justly earns. His wishes
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