The following are all the notes and useful information I highlighted while reading one of my favorite books, The Richest Man in Babylon. This is book is the foundation of my wealth. The simple parables contained within is what I live my financial life by.
Lo, Money is Plentiful
For Those Who Understand
The Simple Rules Of It’s Acquisition
- Start thy purse to fattening
- Control thy expenditures
- Make thy gold multiply
- Guard thy treasures from loss
- Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment
- Insure a future income
- Increase thy ability to earn
Fortunate only in that I had the desire to prosper before I met him. For four years did I not prove my definiteness of purpose by keeping one-tenth of all I earned? Would you call a fisherman lucky who for years so studied the habits of the fish that with each changing wind he could cast his nets about them? Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those who are prepared.
Willpower is buy the unflinching purpose to carry a task you set for yourself to fulfillment.
Wealth grows wherever men exert energy.
Have not the Phoenicians built great cities on barren coasts with the wealth that comes from their ships of commerce on the seas.
They realized that Algamish had come back each time to the room of the scribes because he was watching a man work his way out of darkness into light. When that had found the light, a place awaited him. No one could fill that place until he had for himself worked out his own understanding, until he was ready for opportunity.
A Part Of All You Earn Is Yours To Keep
The First Cure: Start thy purse to fattening
The Second Cure: Control thy expenditures
Study Thoughtfully thy accustomed habits of living. Herein may be most often found certain accepted expenses that may wisely be reduced or eliminated. Let thy motto be one hundrend per cent of appreciated value demanded for each coin spent.
It is to enable thee to realize thy most cherished desires by defending them from thy casual wishes.
The Third Cure: Make Thy Gold Multiply
I tell you, my students, a man’s wealth is not in the coins he carries in his purse; it is the income he buildeth, the golden stream that continually floweth into his purse and keepeth it always bulging.
Gold increaseth rapidly, when making reasonable earnings as though wilt see.
The Fourth Cure: Guard thy treasures from loss
Guard thy treasure from loss by investing only where thy principal is safe, where it may be reclaimed if desireable and where though will not fail to collect a fair rental.
The Fifth Cure: Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment
The Sixth Cure: Insure a future income
The Seventh Cure: Increase thy ability to earn
Preceeding accomplishment must be desire. Thy desires must be strong and definite.
Desires must be simple and definite. They defeat their own purpose should they be too many, too confusing or beyond a mans training to accomplish.
Always do the affairs of man change and improve because keen-minded men seek greater skill that they may better serve those upon whose patronage they depend. Therefore, I urge all men to be in the front rank of progress and not to stand still, lest they be left behind.
Thus the seventh and last remedy for a lean purse is to cultivate thy own powers, to study and become wiser, to become more skillful, to so act as to respect thyself.
Meed The Goddess of Good Luck
“If a man be lucky, there is no foretelling the possible extent of his good fortune. Pitch him into the Euphrates and like as not he will swim out with a pearl in his hand.”
-Babylonian Proverb
A habit of needless delaying where action was required, action prompt and decisive.
The Truth is this: Good luck can be enticed by accepting opportunity.
“Those eager to grasp opportunities for their betterment, do attract the interest of the good goddess. She is ever anxious to aid those who please her. Men of action please her best.
“Action will lead thee forward to the successes thou dost desire.”
Men Of Action Are Favored By The Goddess of Good Luck
The Five Laws Of Gold
“Gold is reserved for those who know its laws and abide by them.”
“First, I give thee this bag of gold. If thou use it wisely, it will be the basis of thy future success.
“Second, I give thee this clay tablet upon which is carved the five laws of gold. If thou dost but interpret them in thy own acts, they shall bring thee competence and security.”
- Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family.
- Gold laboreth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable empoyment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field.
- Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling.
- Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep.
- Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.
“Wealth that comes quickly goeth the same way. Wealth that stayeth to give enjoyment and satisfaction to its owner comes gradually, beacuse it is a child born of knowledge and persistent purpose.”
The Gold Lender Of Babylon
Gold bringeth unto its possessor responsibility and a changed position with his fellow men. It bringeth fear lest he lose it or it be tricked away from him. It bringeth a feeling of power and ability to do good. Likewise, it bringeth a feeling of power and ability to do good. Likewise, it bringeth opportunities whereby his very good intentions may bring him into difficulties.
If you desire to help thy friend do so in a way that will not bring thy friend’s burdens upon thyself.
“What desirest thou most of this gold in thy wallet?”
”To keep it safe.”
“Wisely Spoken,”
“Thy first desire is for Safety”
“Thy second desire is it earn more gold.”
Better A Little Caution That A Great Regret
The Camel Trader of Babylon
What mattered hunger? What mattered thirst? They were but incidents on the road to Babylon.
Soul of a free man looks at life as a series of problems to be solved and solves them, while the soul of a slave whines, “What can I do who am but a slave.”
“Where the determination is, the way can be found.”
The Clay Tablets From Babylon
It is the real fun to accumulate money you do not intend to spend.
The Luckiest Man in Babylon
“When buyers come, tell’em you good worker, like to work hard for good master. Make’em want to buy. You not make’em buy, next day you carry brick. Mighty hard work.
Some men hate it. They make it their enemy. Better to treat it like a friend, make thyself like it. Don’t mind because it is hard. If thou thinkest about what a good house thou build, then who cares if the beams are heavy and it is far from the well to carry the water for the plaster. Promise me, boy, if though get a master, work for him as hard as though canst. If he does not appreciate all thou do, never mind. Remember, work, well-done, does good to the man who does it. It makes him a better man.
Decide what thou desirest to accomplish and then work will aid thee to achieve it.
Work, thou see, by this, in the time of my greatest distress, didst prove to be my best friend. My willingness to work enabled me to escape from being sold to join the slave gangs upon the walls. It also so impressed thy grandfather, he selected me for his partner.
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