Wisdom Vault — onlinknow.co.za

Begin each day with a conquered body, and a mind fortified against error and weakness. Temptation will never be overcome by unprepared fighting. The mind must be armed and arrayed in the silent hour. It must be trained to perceive, to know, to understand.

Sin and temptation disappear when right understanding is developed. 40 Right understanding is reached through unabated discipline. Truth cannot be reached but through discipline. Patience will increase by effort and practice, and patience will make _ discipline beautiful.

Discipline is irksome to the impatient man and the self-lover, so he avoids it, and continues to live loosely and confusedly. Discipline is not irksome to the Truth-lover, and he will find the infinite patience which can wait and work and overcome.

As the joy of the gardener who sees his flowers develop day by day, so is the joy of the man of discipline who sees the divine flowers of Purity, Wisdom, Compassion, and Love, grow up in his heart. The loose-liver cannot escape sorrow and pain.

The undisciplined mind falls, weak and helpless, before the fierce onslaught of passion. Array well your mind, then, lover of Truth. Be watchful, thoughtful, resolute. Your salvation is at hand; your readiness and effort are all that are needed.

If you should fail ten times, do not be disheartened; if you should fail a hundred times, rise up and pursue your way; if you should fail a thousand times, do not despair. When the right Path is entered, success is sure if the Path is not utterly abandoned.

Al First strife, and then victory. First labor, and then rest. First weakness, and then strength. In the beginning the lower life, and the glare and confusion of battle, and at the end the Life Beautiful, the Silence, and the Peace. 42 ABOUT THE AUTHOR James Allen (28 November 1864 — 24 January 1912) was a British philosophical writer known for his inspirational books and poetry and as a pioneer of theself-help movement.

His best known work, As a Man Thinketh, has been mass-produced since its publication in 1903. It has been a source of inspiration to motivational and self-help authors. Born in Leicester, England, into a working-class family, Allen was the elder of two brothers.

His mother could neither read nor write. His father, William, was a factory knitter. In 1879, following a downturn in the textile trade of central England, Allen's father travelled alone to America to find work and establish a new home for the family.

Within two days of arriving his father was pronounced dead at New York City Hospital, believed to be a case of robbery and murder. At age fifteen, with the family now facing economic disaster, Allen was forced to leave school and find work. 43 For much of the 1890s, Allen worked as a private secretary and _ stationer in several British manufacturing firms.