The Richest Man in Babylon ( Audio Book )

The Richest Man in Babylon – George Samuel Clason / Chapter One

George Samuel Clason

The Richest Man in Babylon

This title serves up sound practical advice on thrift, financial planning, and investment philosophy in a unique and refreshing way. Clason delivers classic insights into wealth accumulation through a series of parables set in ancient Babylon, the ancient world’s wealthiest city. When Clason introduced these parables in a famous series of pamphlets first published in 1926, banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions began to distribute them to their customers. His advice soon provided guidance to millions of readers. Although first written over half a century ago, these teachings are as relevant today as they were for the citizens of Babylon. Beloved by millions, this timeless classic holds the key to all you desire and everything you wish to accomplish. This is the book that reveals the secret to personal wealth. The ebook version contains the complete, unabridged original text of this inspirational classic.

The success secrets of the ancients—an assured road to happiness and prosperity.

Countless readers have been helped by the famous “Babylonian parables,” hailed as the greatest of all inspirational works on the subject of thrift, financial planning, and personal wealth. Acclaimed as a modern-day classic, this celebrated bestseller offers an understanding of—and solution to—your personal financial problems that will guide you through a lifetime. This is the book that holds the secrets to acquiring money, keeping money, and making money earn more money. These fascinating and informative stories have become a modern classic in their field.

In language as simple as that of the Bible, this book presents a sure path to prosperity and happiness. The Richest Man in Babylon is a book you will want to read yourself, recommend to friends, and give to young people just starting out in life.
The best advice is often free. The solutions to life’s toughest problems are often the most simple. Perhaps that is why the best advice too often is ignored. It’s just too simple to be believable. The advice offered by The Richest Man In Babylon is so simple that it most often is ignored. Yet it reveals the only reliable secret to obtaining wealth. It is a simple (and safe) secret for obtaining riches. It is not easy, but it is simple. It is hard to execute, but it is unfailing.

The title of the book is taken for one of a collection of parables in the volume. All are pregnant with practical wisdom. All will work. Read The Richest Man In Babylon to place yourself on the one true road to riches. If you read this book, and heed it’s advice, you will become rich, and you can do it starting right now, in your present job. Buy the book. Read it. Insist that your children, and their children, read it. It will be like teaching them to dig in a vein of pure gold.

This “book of cures for lean purses” is a guide to financial understanding. It offers insights that will aid you acquire money, keep money and make your surpluses earn more money. In order to show this, the book takes us back to Babylon, the cradle in which was nurtured the basic principles of finance now recognized and used the world over. Babylon became the wealthiest city of the ancient world because its citizens were the richest people of their time. They appreciated the value of money. They practiced sound financial principles in acquiring money, keeping money and making their money earn more money.

The Riches of Babylon

In the pages of history, there lives no city more glamorous than Babylon. Its very name conjures visions of wealth and splendor. Its treasures of gold and jewels were fabulous. One naturally pictures such a wealthy city as located in a suitable setting of tropical luxury surrounded by rich natural resources of forests and mines. Such was not the case. It was located beside the Euphrates River, in a flat, arid valley. Babylon is an outstanding example of man’s ability to achieve great objectives, using whatever available means at his disposal. All of the resources supporting this large city were man-developed. All of its riches were man-made.

Seven Cures for a Lean Purse

Babylon”s riches, of course, did not happen overnight. Its wealth was the result of the wisdom of its people. They first learned how to become wealthy and practiced what they knew. Here are the seven steps or “cures” to ensure a wealthier life:

Step 1: Start Thy Purse to Fattening
For each ten coins you earn, spend only nine

Step 2: Control Thy Expenditures
Budget your expenses that you may have coins to pay for your necessities, pay for your enjoyments and gratify your worthwhile desires without spending more than nine-tenths of your earnings.

Step 3: Make Thy Gold Multiply
Put each coin to labor so that it may reproduce its kind.

Step 4: Guard Thy Treasures from Loss
Guard your treasures from loss by investing only where the principal is safe, where it may be reclaimed if you desire so, and where you will not fail to collect a fair rental.

Step 5: Make of Thy Dwelling a Profitable Investment
Own your own home.

Step 6: Insure a Future Income
Provide in advance for the needs of your growing age and the needs of your family.
Step 7: Increase Thy Ability to Earn
Cultivate your own powers, study and become wiser, become more skillful, and respect yourself.

About the author

GEORGE SAMUEL CLASON was born in Louisiana, Missouri, on November 7, 1874. He attended the University of Nebraska and served in the United States Army during the Spanish-American War. Beginning a long career in publishing, he founded the Clason Map Company of Denver, Colorado, and published the first road atlas of the United States and Canada. In 1926, he issued the first of a famous series of pamphlets on thrift and financial success, using parables set in ancient Babylon to make each of his points. These were distributed in large quantities by banks and insurance companies and became familiar to millions, the most famous being “The Richest Man in Babylon,” the parable from which the present volume takes its title. These “Babylonian parables” have become a modern inspirational classic.

Foreword

Our prosperity as a nation depends upon the personal financial prosperity of each of us as individuals.

This book deals with the personal successes of each of us. Success means accomplishments as the result of our own efforts and abilities. Proper preparation is the key to our success. Our acts can be no wiser than our thoughts. Our thinking can be no wiser than our understanding.

This book of cures for lean purses has been termed a guide to financial understanding. That, indeed, is its purpose: to offer those who are ambitious for financial success an insight which will aid them to acquire money, to keep money and to make their surpluses earn more money.

In the pages which follow, we are taken back to Babylon, the cradle in which was nurtured the basic principles of finance now recognized and used the world over.

To new readers the author is happy to extend the wish that its pages may contain for them the same inspiration for growing bank accounts, greater financial successes and the solution of difficult personal financial problems so enthusiastically reported by readers from coast to coast.

To the business executives who have distributed these tales in such generous quantities to friends, relatives, employees and associates, the author takes this opportunity to express his gratitude. No endorsement could be higher than that of practical men who appreciate its teachings because they, themselves, have worked up to important successes by applying the very principles it advocates.

Babylon became the wealthiest city of the ancient world because its citizens were the richest people of their time. They appreciated the value of money. They practiced sound financial principles in acquiring money, keeping money and making their money earn more money. They provided for themselves what we all desire . . . incomes for the future.