What­ever may be said in praise of poverty, the fact remains that it is not pos­si­ble to live a really com­plete or suc­cess­ful life unless one is rich. No one can rise to his great­est pos­si­ble height in tal­ent or soul devel­op­ment unless he has plenty of money, for to unfold the soul and to develop tal­ent he must have many things to use, and he can­not have these things unless he has money to buy them with.

A per­son devel­ops in mind, soul, and body by mak­ing use of things, and soci­ety is so orga­nized that man must have money in order to become the pos­ses­sor of things. There­fore, the basis of all advance­ment must be the sci­ence of get­ting rich.

The object of all life is devel­op­ment, and every­thing that lives has an inalien­able right to all the devel­op­ment it is capa­ble of attaining.

A person’s right to life means his right to have the free and unre­stricted use of all the things which may be nec­es­sary to his fullest men­tal, spir­i­tual, and phys­i­cal unfold­ment; or, in other words, his right to be rich.

In this book, I shall not speak of riches in a fig­u­ra­tive way. To be really rich does not mean to be sat­is­fied or con­tented with a lit­tle. No one ought to be sat­is­fied with a lit­tle if he is capa­ble of using and enjoy­ing more. The pur­pose of nature is the advance­ment and unfold­ment of life, and every­one should have all that can con­tribute to the power, ele­gance, beauty, and rich­ness of life. To be con­tent with less is sinful.

The per­son who owns all he wants for the liv­ing of all the life he is capa­ble of liv­ing is rich, and no per­son who has not plenty of money can have all he wants. Life has advanced so far and become so com­plex that even the most ordi­nary man or woman requires a great amount of wealth in order to live in a man­ner that even approaches completeness.

Every per­son nat­u­rally wants to become all that they are capa­ble of becom­ing. This desire to real­ize innate pos­si­bil­i­ties is inher­ent in human nature; we can­not help want­ing to be all that we can be. Suc­cess in life is becom­ing what you want to be. You can become what you want to be only by mak­ing use of things, and you can have the free use of things only as you become rich enough to buy them. To under­stand the sci­ence of get­ting rich is there­fore the most essen­tial of all knowledge.

There is noth­ing wrong in want­ing to get rich. The desire for riches is really the desire for a richer, fuller, and more abun­dant life — and that desire is praise­wor­thy. The per­son who does not desire to live more abun­dantly is abnor­mal, and so the per­son who does not desire to have money enough to buy all he wants is abnormal.

There are three motives for which we live: We live for the body, we live for the mind, we live for the soul. No one of these is bet­ter or holier than the other; all are alike desir­able, and no one of the three — body, mind, or soul — can live fully if either of the oth­ers is cut short of full life and expres­sion. It is not right or noble to live only for the soul and deny mind or body, and it is wrong to live for the intel­lect and deny body or soul.

We are all acquainted with the loath­some con­se­quences of liv­ing for the body and deny­ing both mind and soul, and we see that real life means the com­plete expres­sion of all that a per­son can give forth through body, mind, and soul.

What­ever he can say, no one can be really happy or sat­is­fied unless his body is liv­ing fully in its every func­tion, and unless the same is true of his mind and his soul. Wher­ever there is unex­pressed pos­si­bil­ity or func­tion not per­formed, there is unsat­is­fied desire. Desire is pos­si­bil­ity seek­ing expres­sion or func­tion seek­ing performance.

A per­son can­not live fully in body with­out good food, com­fort­able cloth­ing, and warm shel­ter, and with­out free­dom from exces­sive toil. Rest and recre­ation are also nec­es­sary to his phys­i­cal life.

One can­not live fully in mind with­out books and time to study them, with­out oppor­tu­nity for travel and obser­va­tion, or with­out intel­lec­tual companionship.

To live fully in mind a per­son must have intel­lec­tual recre­ations, and must sur­round him­self with all the objects of art and beauty he is capa­ble of using and appreciating.

To live fully in soul, a per­son must have love, and love is denied fullest expres­sion by poverty.

A person’s high­est hap­pi­ness is found in the bestowal of ben­e­fits on those he loves; love finds its most nat­ural and spon­ta­neous expres­sion in giv­ing. The indi­vid­ual who has noth­ing to give can­not fill his place as a spouse or par­ent, as a cit­i­zen, or as a human being. It is in the use of mate­r­ial things that a per­son finds full life for his body, devel­ops his mind, and unfolds his soul. It is there­fore of supreme impor­tance to each indi­vid­ual to be rich.

It is per­fectly right that you should desire to be rich. If you are a nor­mal man or woman you can­not help doing so. It is per­fectly right that you should give your best atten­tion to the sci­ence of get­ting rich, for it is the noblest and most nec­es­sary of all stud­ies. If you neglect this study, you are derelict in your duty to your­self, to God and human­ity, for you can ren­der to God and human­ity no greater ser­vice than to make the most of yourself.

• The Science Of Getting Rich
• Preface
• The Right To Be Rich
• There is a Science of Getting Rich
• Is Opportunity Monopolized?
• The First Principle in The Science
• Increasing Life
• How Riches Come To You
• Gratitude
• Thinking in The Certain Way
• Further Use of The Will
• How To Use The Will
• Acting in The Certain Way
• Efficient Action
• Getting Into The Right Business
• The Impression of Increase
• The Advancing Personality
• Cautions and Observations
• A Summary of The Science