The Canon / Pillars / Success & Self-Help
Pillars · 1926
The Richest Man in Babylon
Financial wisdom / wealth-buildingThe Richest Man in Babylon collects George Clason's instructional parables, set in ancient Babylon, into a primer on personal finance. Its central claim is the unglamorous core of the success tradition stripped of metaphysics: wealth is built not by luck or talent but by simple, repeatable habits of saving and prudent investment.
The teaching is delivered through memorable maxims dressed as ancient wisdom—"a part of all you earn is yours to keep," the "Seven Cures for a Lean Purse," and the "Five Laws of Gold." Together they prescribe paying oneself first, spending less than one earns, putting savings to productive work, guarding against loss, and avoiding what one does not understand.
Originally issued as pamphlets and distributed by banks, the book has stayed continuously in print as one of the best-selling personal-finance works ever written. It marks the practical, behavior-first pole of the genre, grounding its loftier promises in the plain mechanics of habit and compounding.
In its words
Where the determination is, the way can be found.
Our acts can be no wiser than our thoughts. Our thinking can be no wiser than our understanding.
Will power is but the unflinching purpose to carry a task you set for yourself to fulfillment.
Practices it teaches
Pay Yourself First — keep one-tenth of all you earn
This is the keystone habit of George S. Clason's The Richest Man in Babylon (1926), delivered through the merchant Arkad: "A part of all you earn is yours to keep." The insight is that most people treat their…
The Five Laws of Gold — testing money decisions against five principles
This is George S. Clason's companion to the Seven Cures, given in The Richest Man in Babylon (1926) through the story of Arkad's son Nomasir and the clay tablets.
Control Thy Expenditures — budget the necessary, master desires
This is the second cure of George S. Clason's The Richest Man in Babylon (1926), expanded into a standalone practice.
The Seven Cures for a Lean Purse — the full wealth-building rule-set
This is George S. Clason's complete, ordered programme for building wealth from a thin income, given in The Richest Man in Babylon (1926) as the king's commission to Arkad to teach the people.
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The author
George S. ClasonTimeless laws of saving and growing money
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