About this passageJames Allen was an English writer who left clerical work to write full time and published this, his best-known book, in 1903. The chapter states the movement's central claim in its strongest form: that what a person holds in mind is not merely a wish but the seed of the circumstance. Readers should know that the same book contains a chapter applying that claim to physical illness, which this collection does not reproduce. Whether thought works the way the tradition says is not a question the library takes a position on.
The dreamers are the saviours of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers.
He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it. Columbus cherished a vision of another world, and he discovered it; Copernicus fostered the vision of a multiplicity of worlds and a wider universe, and he revealed it; Buddha beheld the vision of a spiritual world of stainless beauty and perfect peace, and he entered into it.
Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.
In plainer words
Dreamers keep the world going, Allen says. The invisible holds up the visible. Anyone who keeps a beautiful picture in their heart will one day live in it — Columbus kept a vision of another world and found it; Copernicus kept one of a wider universe and showed it. So look after your visions. Look after the music in your head and the loveliness in your purest thoughts, because out of those, he says, your conditions will grow. Dream big dreams; what you dream is what you become. Your vision is a promise of the person you will turn out to be.
A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.