The Richest Man in Babylon in Action

George S. Clason

• Publisher: G&D Media
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781722522681
• Topic: Développement personnel
• Subtopic: Réussite personnelle

LESSONS IN FINANCIAL WISDOM This timeless classic by George Samuel Clason is beloved by millions around the world. It holds the key to all you desire and everything that you wish to accomplish. This collection of parables, set in ancient Babylon, takes you through simple lessons in financial wisdom.Originally a series of pamphlets distributed by banks and insurance companies, they were bound together and published in book form in 1926. They dispensed financial advise through the character's experiences in business and household finance. The Richest Man in Babylon in Action combines the sound financial foundation of ancient Babylon with the real-world application for today, going beyond the simple tale of the original classic. Upon reading, you'll immediately know how to best use Clason's absolute principles and apply them in today's economy with modern investment tools and today's monetary habits.GEORGE SAMUEL CLASON was an American author. He is most associated with his book The Richest Man in Babylon which was first published in 1926 and was a compilation of a series of informational pamphlets about being thrifty and how to achieve financial success.

FOUR

Seven Cures for a Lean Purse

The glory of Babylon endures. Down through the ages its reputation comes to us as the richest of cities, its treasures as fabulous.

Yet it was not always so. The riches of Babylon were the results of the wisdom of its people. They first had to learn how to become wealthy.

When the good King Sargon returned to Babylon after defeating his enemies the Elamites, he was confronted with a serious situation. The royal chancellor explained it to the king thus, “After many years of great prosperity brought to our people because Your Majesty built the great irrigation canals and the mighty temples of the gods, now that these works are completed, the people seem unable to support themselves.

“The laborers are without employment. The merchants have few customers. The farmers are unable to sell their produce. The people have not enough gold to buy food.”

“But where has all the gold gone that we spent for these great improvements?” demanded the king.

“It has found its way, I fear,” responded the chancellor, “into the possession of a few very rich men of our city. It filtered through the fingers of most our people as quickly as the goat’s milk goes through the strainer. Now that the stream of gold has ceased to flow, most of our people have nothing to show for their earnings.”

The king was thoughtful for some time. Then he asked, “Why should so few men be able to acquire all the gold?”

“Because they know how,” replied the chancellor. “One may not condemn a man for succeeding because he knows how. Neither may one with justice take away from a man what he has fairly earned, to give to men of less ability.”

“But why,” demanded the king, “should not all the people learn how to accumulate gold and therefore become themselves rich and prosperous?”

“Quite possible, Your Excellency, but who can teach them? Certainly not the priests, because they know naught of moneymaking.”

“Who knows best in all our city how to become wealthy, chancellor?” asked the king.

“Thy question answers itself, Your Majesty. Who has amassed the greatest wealth in Babylon?”

“Well said, my able chancellor. It is Arkad. He is the richest man in Babylon. Bring him before me on the morrow.”

Upon the following day, as the king had decreed, Arkad appeared before him, straight and sprightly despite his threescore years and ten.

“Arkad,” spoke the King, “is it true thou art the richest man in Babylon?”

“So it is reported, Your Majesty, and no man disputes it.”

“How becamest thou so wealthy?”

“By taking advantage of opportunities available to all citizens of our good city.”

“Thou hadst nothing to start with?”

“Only a great desire for wealth. Besides this, nothing.”

“Arkad,” continued the king, “our city is in a very unhappy state because a few men know how to acquire wealth and therefore monopolize it, while the mass of our citizens lack the knowledge of how to keep any part of the gold they receive. It is my desire that Babylon be the wealthiest city in the world. Therefore it must be a city of many wealthy men. Therefore we must teach all the people how to acquire riches. Tell me, Arkad, is there any secret to acquiring wealth? Can it be taught?”

“It is practical, Your Majesty. That which one man knows can be taught to others.”

The king’s eyes glowed. “Arkad, thou speaketh the words I wish to hear. Wilt thou lend thyself to this great cause? Wilt thou teach thy knowledge to a school for teachers, each of whom shall teach others until there are enough trained to teach these truths to every worthy subject in my domain?”

Arkad bowed and said, “I am thy humble servant to command. Whatever knowledge I possess will I gladly give for the betterment of my fellowmen and the glory of my king. Let your good chancellor arrange for me a class of 100 men and I will teach to them those seven cures which did fatten my purse, than which there was none leaner in all Babylon.”

A fortnight later, in compliance with the king’s command, the chosen hundred assembled in the great hall of the Temple of Learning, seated upon colorful rings in a semicircle. Arkad sat beside a small taboret upon which smoked a sacred lamp sending forth a strange and pleasing odor.

“Behold the richest man in Babylon,” whispered a student, nudging his neighbor as Arkad arose. “He is but a man even as the rest of us.”

“As a dutiful subject of our great king,” Arkad began, “I stand before you in his service. Because once I was a poor youth who did greatly desire gold, and because I found knowledge that enabled me to acquire it, he asks that I impart unto you my knowledge.

“I started my fortune in the humblest way. I had no advantage not enjoyed as fully by you and every citizen in Babylon.

“The first storehouse of my treasure was a well-worn purse. I loathed its useless emptiness. I desired it be round and full, clinking with the sound of gold. Therefore I sought every remedy for a lean purse. I found seven.

“To you, who are assembled before me, shall I explain the Seven Cures for a Lean Purse, which I do recommend to all men who desire much gold. Each day for seven days will I explain to you one of the seven remedies. Listen attentively to the knowledge that I will impart. Debate it with me. Discuss it among yourselves. Learn these lessons thoroughly, that ye may also plant in your own purse the seed of wealth.

“First must each of you start wisely to build a fortune of his own. Then wilt thou be competent, and only then, to teach these truths to others.

“I shall teach to you in simple ways how to fatten your purses. This is the first step leading to the temple of wealth, and no man may climb who cannot plant his feet firmly upon the first step. We shall now consider the first cure.”

The First Cure: Start thy purse to fattening.

Arkad addressed a thoughtful man in the second row. “My good friend, at what craft workest thou?”

“I,” replied the man, “am a scribe, and carve records upon the clay tablets.”

“Even at such labor did I myself earn my first coppers. Therefore thou hast the same opportunity to build a fortune.”

He spoke to a florid-faced man farther back. “Pray tell also what dost thou to earn thy bread?”

“I,” responded this man, “am a meat butcher. I do buy the goats the farmers raise and kill them and sell the meat to the housewives and the hides to the sandalmakers.”

“Because thou dost also labor and earn, thou hast every advantage to succeed that I did possess.”

In this way did Arkad proceed to find out how each man labored to earn his living. When he had done questioning them, he said, “Now, my students, ye can see that there are many trades and labors at which men may earn coins. Each of the ways of earning is a stream of gold from which the worker doth divert by his labors a portion to his own purse. Therefore into the purse of each of you flows a stream of coins large or small according to his ability. Is it not so?”

Thereupon they agreed that it was so. “Then,” continued Arkad, “if each of you desireth to build for himself a fortune, is it not wise to start by utilizing that source of wealth which he already has established?”

To this they agreed. Then Arkad turned to a humble man who had declared himself an egg merchant. “If thou select one of thy baskets and put into it each morning ten eggs and take out from it each evening nine eggs, what will eventually happen?”

“It will become in time overflowing.”

“Why?”

“Because each day I put in one more egg than I take out.”

Arkad turned to the class with a smile. “Does any man here have a lean purse?” First they looked amused. Then they laughed. Lastly they waved their purses in jest.

“All right,” he continued, “Now I shall tell thee the first remedy I learned to cure a lean purse. Do exactly as I have suggested to the egg merchant. For every ten coins thou placest within thy purse, take out for use but nine. Thy purse will start to fatten at once, and its increasing weight will feel good in thy hand and bring satisfaction to thy soul.

“Deride not what I say because of its simplicity. Truth is always simple. I told thee I would tell how built my fortune. This was my beginning. I, too, carried a lean purse and cursed it because there was naught within to satisfy my desires. But when I began to take out from my purse but nine parts of ten I put in, it began to fatten. So will thine.

“Now I will tell a strange truth, the reason for which I know not. When I ceased to pay out more than nine-tenths of my earnings, I managed to get along just as well. I was not shorter than before. Also, ere long, did coins come to me more easily than before. Surely it is a law of the gods that unto him who keepeth and spendeth not a certain part of all his earnings shall gold come more easily. Likewise, him whose purse is empty does gold avoid.

“Which desirest thou the most? Is it the gratification of thy desires of each day, a jewel, a bit of finery, better raiment, more food, things quickly gone and forgotten? Or is it substantial belongings, gold, lands, herds, merchandise, income-bringing investments? The coins thou takest from thy purse bring the first. The coins thou leavest within it will bring the latter.

“This, my students, was the first cure I did discover for my lean purse: for each ten coins I put in, to spend but nine. Debate this amongst yourselves. If any man proves it untrue, tell me upon the morrow, when we shall meet again.”

The Second Cure: Control thine expenditures.

“Some of your members, my students, have asked me this: how can a man keep one-tenth of all he earns in his purse when all the coins he earns are not enough for his necessary expenses?” So did Arkad address his students upon the second day. “Yesterday how many of thee carried lean purses?”

“All of us,” answered the class.

“Yet you do not all earn the same. Some earn much more than others. Some have much larger families to support. Yet all purses were equally lean. Now I will tell thee an unusual truth about men and sons of men. It is this. That what each of us calls our ‘necessary expenses’ will always grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to the contrary.

“Confuse not the necessary expenses with thy desires. Each of you, together with your good families, have more desires than your earnings can gratify. Therefore are thine earnings spent to gratify these desires insofar as they will go. Still thou retainest many ungratified desires.

“All men are burdened with more desires than they can gratify. Because of my wealth thinkest thou I may gratify every desire? ’Tis a false idea. There are limits to my time. There are limits to my strength. There are limits to the distance I may travel. There are limits to what I may eat. There are limits to the zest with which I may enjoy.

“I say to you that just as weeds grow in a field wherever the farmer leaves space for their roots, even so freely do desires grow in men whenever there is a possibility of their being gratified. Thy desires are a multitude, and those that thou mayest gratify are but few.

“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: 100 percent of appreciated value demanded for each coin spent. Therefore engrave upon the clay each thing for which thou desireth to spend. Select those that are necessary and others that are possible through the expenditure of nine-tenths of thy income. Cross out the rest and consider them but a part of that great multitude of desires that must go unsatisfied, and regret them not.

“Budget then thy necessary expenses. Touch not the one-tenth that is fattening thy purse. Let this be thy great desire that is being fulfilled. Keep working with thy budget, keep adjusting it to help thee. Make it thy first assistant in defending thy fattening purse.”

Hereupon one of the students, wearing a robe of red and gold, arose and said, “I am a free man. I believe that it is my right to enjoy the good things of life. Therefore do I rebel against the slavery of a budget which determines just how much I may spend and for what. I feel it would take much pleasure from my life and make me little more than a pack ass to carry a burden.”

To him Arkad replied, “Who, my friend, would determine thy budget?”

“I would make it for myself,” responded the protesting one.

“In that case, were a pack ass to budget his burden, would he include therein jewels and rugs and heavy bars of gold? Not so. He would include hay and grain and a bag of water for the desert trail. The purpose of a budget is to help thy purse to fatten. It is to assist thee to have thy necessities and, insofar as attainable, thy other desires. It is to enable thee to realize thy most cherished desires by defending them from thy casual wishes. Like a bright light in a dark cave thy budget shows up the leaks from thy purse and enables thee to stop them and control thine expenditures for definite and gratifying purposes.

“This, then, is the second cure for a lean purse: budget thy expenses that thou mayest have coins to pay for thy necessities, to pay for thy enjoyments, and to gratify thy worthwhile desires without spending more than nine-tenths of thine earnings.”

The Third Cure: make thy gold multiply.

“Behold, thy lean purse is fattening. Thou hast disciplined thyself to leave therein one-tenth of all thou earnest. Thou hast controlled thine expenditures to protect thy growing treasure.

“Next, we will consider means to put thy treasure to labor and to increase. Gold in a purse is gratifying to own and satisfieth a miserly soul, but earns nothing. The gold we may retain from our earnings is but the start. The earnings it will make shall build our fortunes.” So spoke Arkad upon the third day to his class.

“How, therefore, may we put our gold to work? My first investment was unfortunate, for I lost all. Its tale I will relate later. My first profitable investment was a loan I made to a man named Agger, a shieldmaker. Once each year did he buy large shipments of bronze brought from across the sea to use in his trade. Lacking sufficient capital to pay the merchants, he would borrow from those who had extra coins. He was an honorable man. His borrowing he would repay, together with a liberal rental, as he sold his shields.

“Each time I loaned to him, I loaned back also the rental he had paid to me. Therefore not only did my capital increase, but its earnings likewise increased. Most gratifying was it to have these sums return to my purse.

“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. That is wha...