What is the impact of thought?

You do not attract that which you want, but that which you are. Your inmost thoughts and desires are fed with their own food, be it foul―or clean. The divinity that shapes our ends is in you―it is your very self. You are chained only by yourself. It is not what you wish and pray for that you get, but what you justly earn. Your wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonise with your thoughts and actions. In the light of this truth, what then is the meaning of fighting against circumstances? It means that you are continually revolting against an effect without, while all the time you are nourishing and preserving its cause in your heart.

James Allen, As a Man Thinketh, Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, 1913, Chapter Two, Effect of Thought on Circumstances, 15-6