The Art of Money Getting (Modern, Updated Translation)

Book Summary

P.T. Barnum's "The Art of Money Getting" (1880) presents a practical and candid guide to achieving financial success through ethical business practices and personal discipline. Written by America's first entertainment mogul, the book combines practical business advice with moral philosophy, arguing that true financial success comes from providing genuine value while maintaining one's integrity.

Barnum begins by emphasizing the importance of good health as the foundation of success, advising readers to avoid tobacco, alcohol, and gambling. He argues that physical and mental well-being are essential capitals that every person must protect and nurture to achieve their financial goals.

The work outlines twenty fundamental rules for acquiring wealth, including "Choose the right vocation," "Avoid debt," and "Persevere." Barnum emphasizes that success comes not from seeking quick riches but from steady, persistent effort combined with careful attention to opportunities. He repeatedly stresses the importance of living within one's means while systematically building capital.

Throughout the text, Barnum challenges the notion that business success requires dishonesty. He argues that the most sustainable path to wealth is through providing genuine value and maintaining a reputation for honesty. His advice includes detailed discussions of advertising, customer service, and the importance of understanding human nature.

The book is filled with practical wisdom about money management, from the importance of keeping detailed accounts to the value of investing in oneself through education and self-improvement. Barnum particularly emphasizes the importance of saving money early in life, comparing compound interest to a "golden harvest."

A significant portion of the work focuses on the psychological aspects of success. Barnum discusses the importance of maintaining optimism while being realistic, learning from failures, and developing the mental toughness to persist through difficulties. He shares numerous anecdotes from his own experience to illustrate these principles.

The Art of Money Getting (Modern, Updated Translation)

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In the United States, where we have more land than people, it is not difficult for healthy individuals to make money. In this relatively new environment, there are so many paths to success and so many careers that are not overcrowded that anyone, regardless of gender, who is willing to take on any respectable job available can find well-paying work.

Those who truly desire to achieve independence only need to focus on it and adopt the right methods, just as they would with any other goal they wish to accomplish, and it can be easily done. However, while making money might be straightforward, I am sure many of my listeners will agree that keeping it is the most challenging thing in the world. The path to wealth is, as Dr. Franklin aptly puts it, "as plain as the road to the mill." It simply involves spending less than we earn; that seems to be a very simple problem. Mr. Micawber, one of those delightful creations of the genial Dickens, highlights the issue well when he says that having an annual income of twenty pounds and spending twenty pounds and sixpence makes one the most miserable of men; whereas, having an income of only twenty pounds and spending just nineteen pounds and sixpence makes one the happiest of mortals. Many of my readers might say, "We understand this: this is economy, and we know economy is wealth; we know we can't eat our cake and keep it too." Yet I must point out that perhaps more cases of failure arise from mistakes on this point than almost any other. The fact is, many people think they understand economy when they really do not.

True economy is misunderstood, and people go through life without really understanding what that principle is. One person might say, "I have an income of this amount, and my neighbor has the same; yet every year he gets ahead and I fall behind; why is that? I know all about economy." He thinks he does, but he doesn't. There are people who believe that economy means saving scraps of cheese and candle stubs, cutting a few cents off the laundry bill, and doing all sorts of small, stingy, unpleasant things. Economy is not stinginess. The problem is also that this type of person applies their economy in only one direction. They imagine they are so wonderfully economical by saving a penny where they should spend two, that they think they can afford to waste money in other areas. A few years ago, before kerosene oil was discovered or thought of, you could stay overnight at almost any farmer's house in the countryside and get a very good supper, but after supper, if you tried to read in the sitting room, you would find it impossible with the dim light of one candle. The hostess, noticing your struggle, would say: "It's rather difficult to read here in the evenings; the saying goes 'you must have a ship at sea to be able to burn two candles at once;' we never have an extra candle except on special occasions." These special occasions might happen, perhaps, twice a year. In this way, the good woman saves five, six, or ten dollars in that time: but the knowledge that could be gained from having the extra light would, of course, far outweigh a ton of candles.

But the trouble doesn't end here. Feeling that she's so economical with tallow candles, she thinks she can afford to frequently go to the village and spend twenty or thirty dollars on ribbons and frills, many of which aren't necessary. This false notion can often be seen in businessmen, and in those cases, it often extends to writing paper. You'll find good businessmen who save all the old envelopes and scraps, and wouldn't tear a new sheet of paper if they could avoid it, for anything in the world. This is all well and good; they might save five or ten dollars a year this way, but being so economical (only with note paper), they think they can afford to waste time, host expensive parties, and drive their carriages. This is an illustration of Dr. Franklin's "saving at the spigot and wasting at the bung-hole;" "penny wise and pound foolish." Punch, when speaking of this "one idea" class of people, says "they are like the man who bought a penny herring for his family's dinner and then hired a coach and four horses to take it home." I never knew a man to succeed by practicing this kind of economy.

True economy means always making sure your income is greater than your expenses. Wear your old clothes a little longer if necessary; skip buying the new pair of gloves; mend the old dress; eat simpler food if needed; so that, in all situations, unless some unforeseen accident happens, there will be a surplus in favor of your income. A penny here, and a dollar there, placed at interest, keeps accumulating, and this way, the desired result is achieved. It might take some practice to master this economy, but once you get used to it, you'll find more satisfaction in sensible saving than in reckless spending. Here's a method I recommend: I've found it to be an excellent remedy for extravagance, and especially for misguided economy: When you find that you have no surplus at the end of the year, despite having a good income, I suggest you take a few sheets of paper, form them into a book, and write down every expense. Record it every day or week in two columns, one labeled "necessities" or even "comforts," and the other labeled "luxuries," and you'll find that the latter column will be double, triple, and often ten times greater than the former. The real comforts of life cost only a small portion of what most of us can earn. Dr. Franklin says, "It is the eyes of others and not our own eyes which ruin us. If all the world were blind except myself, I should not care for fine clothes or furniture." It is the fear of what others might say that keeps many worthy families struggling. In America, many people like to say "we are all free and equal," but this is a great mistake in more ways than one.

The idea that we are born "free and equal" is a wonderful truth in one sense, but we are not all born equally wealthy, and we never will be. Someone might say, "There's a man who earns fifty thousand dollars a year, while I only make one thousand dollars. I remember when he was as poor as I am; now he's rich and thinks he's better than me. I'll show him that I'm just as good as he is. I'll go buy a horse and buggy; no, I can't do that, but I'll rent one and ride on the same road as him this afternoon, to prove that I'm just as good as he is."

My friend, you don't need to go to that trouble; you can easily prove that you are "as good as he is"; you just have to behave as well as he does. But you can't make anyone believe that you are as rich as he is. Besides, if you put on these "airs," waste your time, and spend your money, your poor wife will be forced to scrub her fingers off at home and buy her tea two ounces at a time, and everything else in proportion, just so you can keep up "appearances," and, in the end, deceive nobody. On the other hand, Mrs. Smith might say that her next-door neighbor married Johnson for his money, and "everybody says so." She has a nice one-thousand-dollar camel's hair shawl, and she'll make Smith get her an imitation one, and she'll sit in a pew right next to her neighbor in church, to prove that she is her equal.

My dear lady, you will not get ahead in the world if your vanity and envy take the lead. In this country, where we believe the majority should rule, we ignore that principle when it comes to fashion and let a handful of people, calling themselves the aristocracy, set a false standard of perfection. In trying to reach that standard, we constantly keep ourselves poor, always working hard for the sake of appearances. How much wiser it would be to be a "law unto ourselves" and say, "We will regulate our spending by our income, and save something for a rainy day." People should be as sensible about making money as they are about any other subject. Like causes produce like effects. You cannot accumulate a fortune by taking the road that leads to poverty. It doesn't take a prophet to tell us that those who live fully up to their means, without any thought of a downturn in life, can never achieve financial independence.

Men and women used to indulging every whim and fancy will find it difficult at first to reduce their various unnecessary expenses. They will feel it is a great sacrifice to live in a smaller house than they are used to, with less expensive furniture, fewer social gatherings, less costly clothing, fewer servants, fewer balls, parties, theater outings, carriage rides, pleasure trips, cigar smoking, drinking, and other extravagances. However, if they try the plan of setting aside a "nest egg," or, in other words, a small sum of money, either earning interest or wisely invested in land, they will be surprised at the pleasure derived from constantly adding to their little "pile," as well as from all the economical habits that develop from this approach.

The old suit of clothes and the old bonnet and dress will work for another season; the Croton or spring water tastes better than champagne; a cold bath and a brisk walk will be more invigorating than a ride in the finest coach; a social chat, an evening's reading in the family circle, or an hour's play of "hunt the slipper" and "blind man's buff" will be far more enjoyable than a fifty or five hundred dollar party, especially when considering the difference in cost by those who start to appreciate the joys of saving. Thousands of people remain poor, and tens of thousands become poor even after they have acquired enough to support themselves well throughout life, because they plan their living on too broad a scale. Some families spend twenty thousand dollars per year, and some much more, and would hardly know how to live on less, while others often find more genuine enjoyment on a twentieth of that amount. Prosperity is a more challenging test than adversity, especially sudden prosperity. "Easy come, easy go" is an old and true saying. A spirit of pride and vanity, when allowed to take full control, is the relentless cankerworm that eats away at a person's worldly possessions, whether they are small or great, hundreds or millions. Many people, as they begin to prosper, immediately expand their ideas and start spending on luxuries, until soon their expenses consume their income, and they become ruined in their absurd attempts to maintain appearances and create a "sensation."

I know a wealthy gentleman who says that when he first started to succeed, his wife wanted a new and elegant sofa. "That sofa," he says, "ended up costing me thirty thousand dollars!" When the sofa arrived at the house, it became necessary to get chairs to match; then sideboards, carpets, and tables to go with them, and so on through the entire set of furniture. Eventually, it was clear that the house itself was too small and old-fashioned for the new furniture, so a new one was built to match the new purchases. "Thus," added my friend, "it summed up to an expenditure of thirty thousand dollars, all because of that single sofa, and burdened me with the costs of servants, vehicles, and the necessary expenses of maintaining a fine 'establishment,' amounting to a yearly expense of eleven thousand dollars, and that was a tight squeeze. Ten years ago, we lived with much more genuine comfort, because we had much less to worry about, on as many hundreds. The truth is," he continued, "that sofa would have led me to inevitable bankruptcy if not for an extraordinary stroke of prosperity that kept me afloat, and if I hadn't curbed the natural desire to 'show off'."

The foundation of success in life is good health: it is the underlying basis of fortune and also the basis of happiness. A person cannot effectively accumulate wealth when they are sick. They lack ambition, incentive, and energy. Of course, there are those who have poor health and cannot help it; you cannot expect such individuals to accumulate wealth. However, there are many in poor health who don't have to be.

If good health is the foundation of success and happiness in life, how important it is that we study the laws of health, which is just another way of saying the laws of nature! The closer we adhere to the laws of nature, the closer we are to good health, and yet how many people there are who pay no attention to natural laws, but actually violate them, even against their own natural inclinations. We should know that the "sin of ignorance" is never overlooked when it comes to breaking nature's laws; their violation always brings consequences. A child may stick its finger into the flames without knowing it will burn, and so suffers; repentance, even, will not stop the pain. Many of our ancestors knew very little about the principle of ventilation. They did not know much about oxygen, whatever other "gin" they might have been familiar with; and consequently, they built their houses with small seven-by-nine feet bedrooms, and these good old pious Puritans would lock themselves up in one of these cells, say their prayers, and go to bed. In the morning, they would devoutly give thanks for the "preservation of their lives" during the night, and nobody had better reason to be thankful. Probably some big crack in the window, or in the door, let in a little fresh air, and thus saved them.

Many people knowingly go against their better instincts and violate the laws of nature for the sake of fashion. For example, there is one thing that nothing living, except a vile worm, ever naturally loved, and that is tobacco. Yet, how many people deliberately cultivate an unnatural craving and overcome their innate aversion to tobacco to the point where they come to love it. They get a hold of a poisonous, filthy weed, or rather, it takes a firm hold of them. There are married men who go around spitting tobacco juice on the carpet and floors, and sometimes even on their wives as well. They don't kick their wives out of the house like drunken men might, but I'm sure their wives often wish they were outside of the house. Another dangerous aspect is that this artificial craving, like jealousy, "grows by what it feeds on;" when you love something unnatural, a stronger craving is created for the harmful thing than the natural desire for what is harmless. There is an old proverb that says "habit is second nature," but an artificial habit is stronger than nature. Take, for instance, an old tobacco-chewer; his love for the "quid" is stronger than his love for any particular kind of food. He can give up roast beef more easily than give up the weed.

Young boys regret that they are not men; they wish they could go to bed as boys and wake up as men. To achieve this, they imitate the bad habits of their elders. Little Tommy and Johnny see their fathers or uncles smoking a pipe, and they say, "If I could only do that, I would be a man too; Uncle John has gone out and left his pipe of tobacco, let's try it." They take a match, light it, and start puffing away. "We will learn to smoke; do you like it, Johnny?" That boy sadly replies, "Not very much; it tastes bitter." Eventually, he grows pale, but he persists, and soon he sacrifices his comfort on the altar of fashion. However, the boys stick with it and persevere until they finally conquer their natural appetites and become victims of acquired tastes.

I speak "by the book" because I have noticed its effects on myself, having once smoked ten or fifteen cigars a day. However, I haven't used tobacco in the last fourteen years and never will again. The more a person smokes, the more they crave it; the last cigar smoked just increases the desire for another, and so on endlessly.

Consider the tobacco chewer. In the morning, when he wakes up, he puts a quid in his mouth and keeps it there all day, only taking it out to replace it with a fresh one or when he's about to eat. Yes, throughout the day and evening, many chewers will take out the quid and hold it in their hand just long enough to take a drink, and then back it goes. This simply proves that the craving for alcohol is even stronger than that for tobacco. When the tobacco chewer visits your country estate and you show him your vineyard and fruit house, and the beauty of your garden, offering him some fresh, ripe fruit, saying, "My friend, I have here the most delicious apples, pears, peaches, and apricots; I've imported them from Spain, France, and Italy—just look at those luscious grapes; there's nothing more delicious or healthier than ripe fruit, so help yourself; I want to see you enjoy these things," he will roll the dear quid under his tongue and reply, "No, thank you, I have tobacco in my mouth." His palate has become dulled by the harmful weed, and he has largely lost the delicate and desirable taste for fruits. This shows what expensive, useless, and harmful habits people can develop. I speak from experience. I have smoked until I trembled like a leaf, the blood rushed to my head, and I had a heart palpitation that I thought was heart disease, until I was nearly frightened to death. When I consulted my doctor, he said, "Stop using tobacco." I was not only harming my health and spending a lot of money, but I was also setting a bad example. I followed his advice. No young man in the world ever looked as handsome, as he thought he did, behind a fifteen-cent cigar or a meerschaum pipe!

These remarks apply even more strongly to the use of intoxicating drinks. To make money, you need a clear mind. A person has to see that two and two make four; they must plan with reflection and foresight, and carefully examine all the details and intricacies of business. No one can succeed in business without a mind capable of planning and reason to guide them in executing those plans. No matter how intelligent a person may be, if their mind is clouded and their judgment impaired by intoxicating drinks, it is impossible for them to conduct business successfully. How many good opportunities have slipped away, never to return, while someone was sipping a "social drink" with a friend! How many foolish deals have been made under the influence of the "nervine," which temporarily makes its victim feel wealthy. How many important opportunities have been postponed until tomorrow, and then forever, because the wine cup has left the system in a state of lethargy, neutralizing the energy so essential for success in business. Truly, "wine is a mocker." The use of intoxicating drinks as a beverage is as much an infatuation as the smoking of opium by the Chinese, and the former is just as destructive to the success of a business person as the latter. It is an unmitigated evil, utterly indefensible in the light of philosophy, religion, or common sense. It is the source of nearly every other evil in our country.

Don't Mistake Your Calling

The safest plan, and the one most likely to succeed for a young person starting out in life, is to choose a career that aligns with their interests. Parents and guardians often neglect this important consideration. It's quite common for a father to say, for example: "I have five boys. I'll make Billy a clergyman; John a lawyer; Tom a doctor, and Dick a farmer." Then he goes into town to decide what to do with Sammy. He returns home and says, "Sammy, I see watchmaking is a nice, respectable business; I think I'll make you a goldsmith." He does this without considering Sam's natural inclinations or talents.

We are all, undoubtedly, born for a wise purpose. There is as much diversity in our minds as in our appearances. Some are born natural mechanics, while others have a strong dislike for machinery. Let a dozen ten-year-old boys gather together, and you will soon notice two or three "whittling" out some clever device, working with locks or complex machinery. Even when they were just five years old, their father couldn't find a toy to please them like a puzzle. They are natural mechanics; but the other eight or nine boys have different talents. I belong to the latter group; I never had the slightest love for mechanics; on the contrary, I have a sort of aversion to complex machinery. I never had enough skill to whittle a cider tap so it wouldn't leak. I never could make a pen that I could write with, or understand the principle of a steam engine. If someone were to take a boy like I was and try to make a watchmaker out of him, the boy might, after an apprenticeship of five or seven years, be able to take apart and put together a watch; but throughout his life, he would be struggling and finding every excuse to leave his work and waste time. Watchmaking is repulsive to him.

Unless a person pursues the career intended for them by nature, and best suited to their unique talents, they cannot succeed. I am glad to believe that the majority of people do find their right career. Yet we see many who have mistaken their calling, from the blacksmith up (or down) to the clergyman. You will see, for instance, that extraordinary linguist, the "learned blacksmith," who should have been a teacher of languages; and you may have seen lawyers, doctors, and clergymen who were better suited by nature for the anvil or the lapstone.

Choose the Right Location

After finding the right career, you must be careful to choose the proper location. You might be perfectly suited to run a hotel, and they say it takes a genius to "know how to keep a hotel." You could manage a hotel like clockwork and provide for five hundred guests every day to their satisfaction; yet, if you were to set up your hotel in a small village with no railroad connections or public travel, the location would lead to your downfall. It's equally important not to start a business where there are already enough establishments to meet all demands in the same field. I recall a case that illustrates this point. When I was in London in 1858, I was walking down Holborn with an English friend and came across the "penny shows." They had huge posters outside, showcasing the amazing curiosities to be seen "all for a penny." Being somewhat in the "show business" myself, I said, "Let's go in here." We soon found ourselves in the presence of the illustrious showman, and he turned out to be the sharpest man in that line I had ever met. He told us some extraordinary stories about his bearded ladies, his Albinos, and his Armadillos, which we could hardly believe, but thought it "better to believe it than look for proof." He eventually urged us to look at some wax statues and showed us a collection of the dirtiest and filthiest wax figures imaginable. They looked as if they hadn't seen water since the Flood.

"What is so wonderful about your statues?" I asked.

"I beg you not to speak so sarcastically," he replied, "sir, these are not Madam Tussaud's wax figures, all covered with gold leaf and tinsel and fake diamonds, and copied from engravings and photographs. Mine, sir, were taken from life. Whenever you look at one of those figures, you may consider that you are looking at the living individual."

Glancing casually at them, I saw one labeled "Henry VIII," and feeling a bit curious since it looked like Calvin Edson, the living skeleton, I said, "Do you call that 'Henry the Eighth?'" He replied, "Certainly, sir; it was taken from life at Hampton Court, by special order of His Majesty, on such a day."

He would have told the time of day if I had resisted; I said, "Everyone knows that 'Henry VIII' was a great stout old king, and that figure is lean and lank; what do you say to that?"

"Well," he replied, "you would be thin and gaunt yourself if you sat there as long as he has."

There was no resisting such arguments. I said to my English friend, "Let's go out; don't tell him who I am; I admit defeat; he wins."

He followed us to the door, and seeing the crowd in the street, he called out, "Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to draw your attention to the respectable character of my visitors," pointing to us as we walked away. I visited him a couple of days later, told him who I was, and said:

"My friend, you're an excellent performer, but you've picked a bad spot."

He replied, "That's true, sir; I feel like all my talents are wasted. But what can I do?"

"You can go to America," I replied. "You can fully utilize your abilities over there; you'll find plenty of space to grow in America. I'll hire you for two years; after that, you'll be able to continue on your own."

He accepted my offer and stayed for two years at my New York museum. After that, he went to New Orleans and ran a traveling show business during the summer. Today, he is worth sixty thousand dollars, simply because he chose the right career and found the right location. The old proverb says, "Three moves are as bad as a fire," but when a person is already in the fire, it doesn't matter much how soon or how often they move.

Avoid Debt

Young men starting out in life should avoid getting into debt. There's hardly anything that drags a person down like debt. It's a burdensome position to be in, yet we often find young men, barely out of their teens, getting into debt. He meets a friend and says, "Look at this: I got credit for a new suit of clothes." He seems to view the clothes as a gift; well, it often is, but if he manages to pay and then gets credit again, he's developing a habit that will keep him in poverty throughout his life. Debt robs a man of his self-respect and makes him almost despise himself. Grumbling and working for what he's already consumed or worn out, and now when he's asked to pay up, he has nothing to show for his money; this is rightly called "working for a dead horse." I'm not talking about merchants buying and selling on credit, or those who buy on credit to turn a profit. The old Quaker said to his farmer son, "John, never get trusted; but if you do get trusted for anything, let it be for 'manure,' because that will help you pay it back again."

Mr. Beecher advised young men to go into a small amount of debt if they could, for the purchase of land in rural areas. "If a young man," he says, "will only go into debt for some land and then get married, these two things will keep him on the right path, or nothing will." This may be safe to a limited extent, but going into debt for what you eat, drink, and wear should be avoided. Some families have a foolish habit of getting credit at "the stores," and thus frequently buy many things that could have been done without.

It's all very well to say, "I've been given a sixty-day credit, and if I don't have the money, the creditor won't mind." But there's no group of people in the world with better memories than creditors. When those sixty days are up, you'll have to pay. If you don't pay, you'll break your promise and might end up lying. You might make some excuse or borrow money from somewhere else to pay it, but that only gets you in deeper debt.

Horatio was a good-looking, lazy young apprentice. His employer asked, "Horatio, have you ever seen a snail?" "I think I have," he slowly replied. "You must have met one then, because I'm sure you never caught up with one," said the boss. Your creditor will either meet you or catch up with you and say, "Now, my young friend, you agreed to pay me; you haven't done it, so you must give me your note." You give the note with interest, and it starts working against you; "it's a dead horse." The creditor goes to bed at night and wakes up in the morning better off than when he went to sleep, because his interest has increased overnight, but you become poorer while you're sleeping, as the interest is accumulating against you.

Money is in some ways like fire; it's an excellent servant but a terrible master. When it controls you, when interest is constantly piling up against you, it will keep you down in the worst kind of slavery. But let money work for you, and you have the most devoted servant in the world. It is no "eye-servant." There is nothing living or non-living that will work as faithfully as money when invested wisely and securely. It works day and night, in all kinds of weather.

I was born in the blue-law state of Connecticut, where the old Puritans had such strict laws that it was said, "they fined a man for kissing his wife on Sunday." Yet these wealthy old Puritans would have thousands of dollars earning interest, and on Saturday night they would be worth a certain amount; on Sunday they would go to church and fulfill all the duties of a Christian. Upon waking up on Monday morning, they would find themselves considerably richer than they were on Saturday night, simply because their money, placed at interest, had worked faithfully for them all day Sunday, according to the law!

Do not let it work against you; if you do, there is no chance for success in life as far as money is concerned. John Randolph, the eccentric Virginian, once exclaimed in Congress, "Mr. Speaker, I have discovered the philosopher's stone: pay as you go." This is, indeed, closer to the philosopher's stone than any alchemist has ever achieved.

Persevere

When a man is on the right path, he must persevere. I mention this because there are some people who are "born tired," naturally lazy and lacking self-reliance and perseverance. But they can develop these qualities, as Davy Crockett said:

"Remember this when I'm gone: Make sure you're right, then go ahead."

It is this proactive attitude, this determination not to let the "horrors" or the "blues" take over you, causing you to relax your efforts in the struggle for independence, that you must cultivate.

How many have almost reached the goal of their ambition, but losing faith in themselves, have relaxed their efforts, and the golden prize has been lost forever.

It is without a doubt often true, as Shakespeare says:

"There is a crucial moment in the lives of people, which, if seized at its peak, leads to success."

If you hesitate, someone bolder will reach out before you and get the prize. Remember the proverb of Solomon: "He becomes poor who deals with a slack hand; but the hand of the diligent makes rich."

Perseverance is sometimes just another word for self-reliance. Many people naturally focus on the negative aspects of life and worry unnecessarily. They are born this way. Then they seek advice, allowing themselves to be swayed by one opinion and then another, unable to depend on themselves. Until you reach a point where you can rely on yourself, you should not expect to succeed.

I have known people personally who have faced financial setbacks and even committed suicide because they believed they could never overcome their misfortune. But I have known others who have encountered more serious financial difficulties and have overcome them through simple perseverance, supported by a strong belief that they were acting justly and that Providence would "overcome evil with good." You can see this illustrated in any area of life.

Consider two generals; both understand military tactics, both educated at West Point, if you will, both equally talented. Yet one possesses the principle of perseverance, while the other lacks it. The former will succeed in his profession, while the latter will fail. One might hear the cry, "The enemy is coming, and they have cannons."

"Do you have cannons?" asks the hesitant general.

"Yes."

"Then stop, everyone."

He wants time to reflect; his hesitation is his downfall; the enemy passes unchallenged or overwhelms him. On the other hand, the general with courage, perseverance, and self-reliance goes into battle with determination. Amid the clash of arms, the booming of cannons, the cries of the wounded, and the moans of the dying, you will see this man persevering, pushing forward, cutting and slashing his way through with unwavering determination, inspiring his soldiers to acts of endurance, bravery, and victory.

Whatever you do, do it with all your strength.

Work at it, if necessary, early and late, in season and out of season, leaving no stone unturned, and never putting off for even an hour what can be done just as well now. The old proverb is full of truth and meaning, "Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well." Many people acquire a fortune by doing their business thoroughly, while their neighbor remains poor for life because they only do it halfway. Ambition, energy, industry, and perseverance are indispensable requirements for success in business.

Fortune always favors the brave and never helps someone who doesn't help themselves. It's not wise to spend your time like Mr. Micawber, waiting for something to "turn up." For such people, one of two things usually "turns up": the poorhouse or jail, because idleness breeds bad habits and leaves a person in rags. The poor, wasteful wanderer says to a rich man:

"I have realized that there is enough money in the world for everyone, if it were equally divided; this must be done, and we will all be happy together."

"But," came the reply, "if everyone were like you, it would be gone in two months, and what would you do then?"

"Oh! Keep dividing; just keep dividing, of course!"

I was recently reading in a London paper about a similar philosophic pauper who was kicked out of a cheap boarding house because he couldn't pay his bill. However, he had a roll of papers sticking out of his coat pocket, which, upon examination, turned out to be his plan for paying off England's national debt without spending a penny. People need to do as Cromwell said: "Not only trust in Providence, but keep the powder dry." Do your part of the work, or you cannot succeed. Muhammad, one night, while camping in the desert, overheard one of his tired followers say: "I will let my camel loose and trust it to God!" "No, no, not so," said the prophet, "tie your camel and trust it to God!" Do all you can for yourselves, and then trust Providence, or luck, or whatever you please to call it, for the rest.