“As a Man Thinketh” is a literary essay of James Allen, the title is influenced by a verse in the Bible from the Book of Proverbs chapter 23 verse 7, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” James Allen was a British philosophical writer known for his inspirational books and poetry and as a pioneer of the self-help movement, he was born in Leicester, England, into a working-class family, Allen was the elder of two brothers. His mother could neither read nor write while his father, William, was a factory knitter. In 1903, Allen published his third and most famous book “As a Man Thinketh’’.
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.
THE aphorism, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he," not only embraces the whole of a man's being, but is so comprehensive as to reach out to every condition and circumstance of his life. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.