As a man thinketh

James Allen's short 1903 essay argues that a person's thoughts shape their character and the circumstances of their life. Its title comes from Proverbs 23:7. Allen, an English writer of devotional and self-help books, published it after From Poverty to Power (1901), and it has stayed in print ever since as one of the founding texts of the self-help genre. The book is brief, running to about 64 pages in most modern printings, and reads as a single sustained meditation rather than a set of exercises.