Table of Contents
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TARCHER SUCCESS CLASSICS
The Law of Success
Napoleon Hill
Think and Grow Rich
Napoleon Hill
Your Magic Power to Be Rich!
Napoleon Hill
As a Man Thinketh
James Allen
Acres of Diamonds
Russell H. Conwell
A Message to Garcia
Elbert Hubbard
The Science of Getting Rich
Wallace D. Wattles
The Science of Being Great
Wallace D. Wattles
The Master Key System
Charles F. Haanel
The Secret of the Ages
Robert Collier
Public Speaking for Success
Dale Carnegie
In Tune with the Infinite
Ralph Waldo Trine
Prosperity
Charles Fillmore
How to Prosper in Hard Times
includes Napoleon Hill,
James Allen, Joseph Murphy
The Think and Grow Rich Workbook
Napoleon Hill
The Magic Ladder to Success
Napoleon Hill
The Master-Key to Riches
Napoleon Hill
The Game of Life and How to Play It
Florence Scovel Shinn
The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
Joseph Murphy, Ph.D., D.D.
Riches Within Your Reach!
Robert Collier
How to Be Rich
includes Napoleon Hill,
Joseph Murphy, Wallace D. Wattles,
Robert Collier
The Think and Grow Rich
Success Journal
Napoleon Hill with
Joel Fotinos and August Gold
Think and Grow Rich Every Day
Napoleon Hill with
Joel Fotinos and August Gold
The Life Magnet
Robert Collier
ORIGINAL PUBLISHERS INTRODUCTION:
THE STORY BEHIND THIS VOLUME
For the first time Napoleon Hill gives you inTHINK YOUR WAY TO WEALTHall seventeen Principles of Success IN A SINGLE VOLUME just as they were taught to him in person by Andrew Carnegie and other successful men who gave freely of their time and experience.
Napoleon Hill tells you the secret of How to win riches... power... prestige. He tells how the average man may learn to use the secrets of Americas greatest and richest men.
Read the probing questions Dr. Hill asked of Andrew Carnegie. Profit by the philanthropists frank, illuminating statements HOW HE MADE HIS MONEY. This inspiring writer made it his lifes work to trace these answers. He found that other men agreed! At last Napoleon Hill knew he had made a sensational discovery: THAT THE APPLICATION OF CERTAIN FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES WOULD INSURE SUCCESS TO EVERY ONE WHO MADE USE OF THEM. The entire secret of success is written down in THINK YOUR WAY TO WEALTH.
With illuminating pen and purpose, Hill writes from his intimate knowledge of and association with the worlds wealthiest men. He found and gives you the true philosophy upon which all lasting success is built.
In the Steel Kings own words, Napoleon Hill records his personal interviews with Carnegie, setting down each question and answer. The entire law, consisting of seventeen steps, is condensed for the first time in this volume, and gives a master plan to win success.
The theory that the road to wealth is hard and narrow is dead-as-a-doornail. Youll know it for the broad, smooth paved highway it is for those who apply the seventeen principles in the law of success. That promotion will look easy. That top job will not look so far away.
If you, like thousands of other men and women, have dreams of retiring some day but find your goal as far away as it was five... ten... fifteen years ago... ACT NOW! Start by deciding how much money you need... for retirement... for a new house... a car... sons education. We take you now to the private study of Andrew Carnegie, where Napoleon Hill is taking his first lesson on success.
The Publisher 1948
CHAPTER 1
DEFINITENESS OF PURPOSE
HILL: Mr. Carnegie, I would like to have you go back to the beginning of your career and describe to me, step by step, the principles of achievement through which you began, without money, without great influence and with but little schooling, and lifted yourself into a position of great affluence and wealth. Inasmuch as I am requesting this information in behalf of men and women who have neither the time nor the opportunity to acquire knowledge of the rules of success from those who have been successful, I ask that you forego all formalities and speak to me plainly and frankly, in terms that any person of average intelligence may understand.
CARNEGIE: Very well, I shall describe the rules of personal achievement which have been responsible for my own accomplishments, but I do so on condition that you organize these rules of human relationship into a philosophy that will be available to every person who has the ambition to master and use it.
What I am asking you to do is one of the constructive means I have for the distribution of my fortune. The money I have accumulated I will give away, in due time, through sources that will do the least amount of harm and the greatest possible good; but my real wealththat portion of it which I wish to donate for the good of mankindconsists of the principles of personal achievement which I am entrusting to you.
In lending you my aid in the organization of the rules of personal achievement, I do so with the understanding that you will carry on a continuous research until you shall have compared my own experiences with the experience of other men who have been recognized as successes in many fields of endeavor, in order that you may give the world a success philosophy of sufficient flexibility that it will serve the needs of all people, regardless of their calling or purpose in life. A sound philosophy of individual achievement must present a clear understanding of the principles that bring success and those that lead to failure.
HILL: Your conditions are accepted, Mr. Carnegie, and you may rest assured, Sir, that I will never stop until the job has been finished, regardless of the time required. Your faith in my ability to do the job is all the inspiration I need to insure my carrying on until I finish. Will you begin, now, and give me an understandable analysis of all the principles of success which you have used in your personal advancement?
CARNEGIE: To begin with, let me state that there are seventeen major principles of success, and every person who attains the objective of his major goal, in any undertaking, must use some combination of these principles.
We shall name, first, the most important of these principles. It stands at the head of the list of the seventeen principles of achievement because no one has ever been known to succeed without applying it. You may call it the principle of Definiteness of Purpose.
Study any person who is known to be a permanent success and you will find that he has a Definite Major Goal; he has a plan for the attainment of this goal; he devotes the major portion of his thoughts and his efforts to the attainment of this purpose.
My own major purpose is that of making and marketing steel. I conceived that purpose while working as a laborer.