Most of the financial advice you get around the web is based on opportunity. People are always looking for the newest way to earn cash for the least amount of work. It’s no surprise most people struggle to build wealth, jumping from one opportunity to the next, wondering why nothing ever works.
The principles that build wealth haven’t changed for centuries. These 78 maxims, gleaned from Benjamin Franklin’s Way to Wealth, contain all the wisdom needed to amass a fortune. Unfortunately, it’s still going to take hard work, intelligence, and discipline.
Industry (1-39) - Energetic devotion to a task or an endeavor; diligence.
- Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise
- Diligence is the mother of good luck
- God helps them that help themselves
- Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright
- Dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of
- Lost time is never found again
- He that riseth late, must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night
- Drive thy business, let not that drive thee
- Industry need not wish
- He that lives upon hope will die fasting
- There are no gains, without pains
- Plough deep, while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep
- One today is worth two tomorrows
- Have you somewhat to do tomorrow, do it today
- Be ashamed to catch yourself idle
- Let not the sun look down and say, inglorious here he lies
- He that hath a trade hath an estate
- He that hath a calling hath an office of profit and honor
- At the working man’s house hunger looks in, but dares not enter
- For industry pays debts, while despair encreaseth them
- Constant dropping wears away stones
- By diligence and patience the mouse ate in two the cable
- Little strokes fell great oaks
- Employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain leisure
- Since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour
- A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. Do you imagine that sloth will afford you more comfort than labor?
- Trouble springs from idleness, and grievous toil from needless ease.
- Many without labor would live by their wits only, but they break for want of stock
- Industry gives comfort, and plenty, and respect: fly pleasures, and they’ll follow you
- Keep the shop, and thy shop will keep thee
- If you would have your business done, go; if not, send
- He that by the plough would thrive, Himself must either hold or drive.
- The eye of a master will do more work than both his hands
- Want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge
- Not to oversee workmen is to leave them your purse open
- In the affairs of this world men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it
- Learning is to the studious, and riches to the careful, as well as power to the bold, and Heaven to the virtuous
- If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself
- For want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost, and for want of a horse the rider was lost
Frugality (40-78) - Prudent economy; that careful management of anything valuable which expends nothing unnecessarily, and applies what is used to a profitable purpose; thrift; — opposed to extravagance.
- A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not worth a groat at last
- Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship
- Buy what thou hast no need of, and before long thou shalt sell thy necessaries
- A fat kitchen makes a lean will
- Many estates are spent in the getting, Since women for tea forsook spinning and knitting, And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting.
- Think of saving as well as of getting: the Indies have not made Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater than her incomes
- Women and wine, game and deceit, Make the wealth small, and the wants great.
- What maintains one vice, would bring up two children
- Who dainties love, shall beggars prove
- Fools make Feasts, and wise men eat them
- Buy what thou hast no need of, and before long thou shalt sell thy necessaries
- Wise men learn by others’ harms, fools scarcely by their own
- Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets, put out the kitchen fire
- A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees
- Always taking out of the meal-tub, and never putting in, soon comes to the bottom
- When the well’s dry, they know the worth of water
- If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some
- He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing
- Fond pride of dress, is sure a very curse; E’er fancy you consult, consult your purse.
- Pride is as loud a beggar as want, and a great deal more saucy.
- When you have bought one fine thing you must buy ten more, that your appearance maybe all of a piece
- Tis easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it
- Great estates may venture more, But little boats should keep near shore.
- Pride that dines on vanity sups on contempt
- Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy
- But what madness must it be to run in debt for these superfluities!
- When you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty
- The second vice is lying, the first is running in debt
- Lying rides upon debt’s back
- Poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue: ’tis hard for an empty bag to stand upright
- Creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times
- Those have a short Lent who owe money to be paid at Easter
- The borrower is a slave to the lender, and the debtor to the creditor
- Disdain the chain, preserve your freedom; and maintain your independency: be industrious and free; be frugal and free
- For age and want, save while you may; No morning sun lasts a whole day
- Gain may be temporary and uncertain, but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain
- Tis easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel
- Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.
- Get what you can, and what you get hold; ’Tis the stone that will turn all your lead into go
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Whoa, big list. I read the Way to Wealth a few years back and this does a great job capturing all the brilliant aphorisms. I guess there’s no substitute for timeless wisdom.
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#3 and #11 are the same in the second list.
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Homage……
Benjamin Franklin is perhaps the greatest Renaissance Man after da Vinci. Franklin did it all from business, to science, to music to politics….
Ugh. I need to work on #1. I’m burning the midnight oil just about every night.
Plough deep, while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep
I came across a smaller list of wealth building trips from the book The Richest Man in Bablyon. I used them and discuss them in my article “Make Ends Meet, and Then Some” at http://www.destyonline.com/make-ends-meet-and-then-some/
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This is a great collection of quotes! I made a greasemonkey script that puts a random quote from your “Industry” section at the top of reddit when I visit it in Firefox. It will help me remember to be productive when I start surfing the ‘net.
http://www.benatkin.com/weblog/?p=76
Ben,
I actually saw your post about that script. Very cool idea! I might have to set it up myself.
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Very useful tips for middle class people to save money.
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Great sayings from a great American!!
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“People are always looking for the newest way to earn cash for the least amount of work. ”
I don’t see anything wrong with this. We’re naturally energy-conserving creatures. I think we could all learn from Ben if we realize that working smarter, instead of harder, is the true meaning of being industrious. By conserving our energies and attention, we are being frugal.
It’s one of the foundations of the GTD philosophy: conserve.
Economically, its a natural behavior to strive to get more out than we put in; that was what the productivity boom of the ’90s was all about, and why a lot of white collar information workers kept their jobs. Everything we do, from technology, to education, to hard skills training, helps us get more accomplished with the same energy, thereby increasing our wealth.
Even the ancient stone masons had strict processes and methodologies, before one could even say there existed hard sciences, to improve the quality and speed of their work.
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Benjamin Franklin For ” PRESIDENT”
http://www.thinkspotting.com/entrytype1_des.php?entry_id=319
I really love John Wesley advices and tips. Few of them really works for me.
quote “People are always looking for the newest way to earn cash for the least amount of work. ” is really what is happening in the real world.
What make people successful in building wealth is nothing other than mindset and goal setting. Aim for your goal, forget what has passed, work hard ahead.
Bernard,
www.VisualizeForWealth.com
Love this post!
This tips are still working right now and there’s lots of wisdom in it!
Thanks for the effort!
Alex Liu
SecretsOfUnlimitedWealth.com
Wow! Great article here. It’s like reading 100 mini aesop fables, each carries its own message and function.
I will definitely share this with my readers in the future.
BTW, great site. I’m a first time visitor.
I love “Little strokes fell great oaks”! BF has really coined some timeless phrases here and we all have a lot to learn. Wealth built slowly and wisely over the decades without undue haste will last for generations with careful management. The bible teaches us in proverbs that much can be worn away with patient dripping!