Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich is Napoleon Hill's distillation of what he presented as a universal philosophy of success, drawn from his reported study of leading industrialists. Its central claim is that material achievement begins in the mind: a definite, emotionally charged aim, held with faith and impressed upon the subconscious, sets in motion the conditions of its own realization.

The argument is organized as a sequence of principles—definiteness of purpose and "burning desire," autosuggestion, specialized knowledge, organized planning, persistence, and the "Master Mind" of coordinated minds working in harmony. Hill insists throughout that mental causation must be wedded to structured planning and sustained action rather than wishing alone.

Published in the depths of the Depression, the book recast New Thought metaphysics in the secular, business-minded idiom of American achievement, presenting success as a learnable technology. It became one of the best-selling self-help works in history and the central text of the success-and-wealth tradition.