Editor's entry
~1 min readNapoleon Hill's 1937 distillation of two decades of self-described interviews with American industrialists — Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and others — into thirteen "principles of personal achievement": desire, faith, autosuggestion, specialised knowledge, imagination, organised planning, decision, persistence, the "mastermind", sex transmutation, the subconscious mind, the brain, and the sixth sense. The book frames wealth as the outer signature of disciplined mental conditioning.
The all-time bestseller in the success-literature genre and the source text for nearly every modern motivational author. The historical claims have aged badly: investigators including Matt Novak (Gizmodo, 2016) have shown that Hill's biography is largely fabricated and that his Carnegie meeting almost certainly never happened. The principles still circulate widely; the man behind them is a more troubled figure than the book's mythology suggests.
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First lines
opening of the bookIn every chapter of this book, mention has been made of the money-making secret which has made fortunes for more than five hundred exceedingly wealthy men whom I have carefully analyzed over a long period of years.
Contents
13 chapters- Desire: The Starting Point of All Achievement
- Faith: Visualization of, and Belief in Attainment of Desire
- Auto-Suggestion: The Medium for Influencing the Subconscious Mind
- Specialized Knowledge: Personal Experiences or Observations
- Imagination: The Workshop of the Mind
- Organized Planning: The Crystallization of Desire into Action
- Decision: The Mastery of Procrastination
- Persistence: The Sustained Effort Necessary to Induce Faith
- Power of the Master Mind: The Driving Force
- The Mystery of Sex Transmutation
- The Subconscious Mind: The Connecting Link
- The Brain: A Broadcasting and Receiving Station for Thought
- The Sixth Sense: The Door to the Temple of Wisdom
Reception
editor-collectedThe all-time bestseller in the success-literature genre — over 100 million copies sold across editions, the source text for nearly every modern motivational author, and a fixture of corporate sales-training canons. The historical claims have aged badly: investigators including Matt Novak (Gizmodo, 2016) have shown that Hill's biography is largely fabricated and that his Carnegie meeting almost certainly never happened. The principles still circulate widely; the man behind them is a more troubled figure than the book's mythology suggests.
Index reception note
Frequently asked
3 questions- What are the thirteen principles in Think and Grow Rich?
- Desire, faith, autosuggestion, specialised knowledge, imagination, organised planning, decision, persistence, the "mastermind", sex transmutation, the subconscious mind, the brain, and the sixth sense. Each occupies one chapter and is framed as a step in the disciplined mental conditioning Hill claims produces wealth.
- Did Napoleon Hill really interview Andrew Carnegie?
- Probably not. Independent investigators including Matt Novak (Gizmodo, 2016) have found no contemporaneous evidence that the Carnegie meeting that Hill says launched his twenty-year research project ever took place, and most of Hill's biographical claims have not held up under scrutiny. The principles circulate independently of the biography.
- How many copies has Think and Grow Rich sold?
- Estimates from the publisher and Hill's foundation put cumulative sales above one hundred million copies across editions since 1937, making it among the best-selling self-help titles of the twentieth century.
Catalogue record
- Author
- Napoleon Hill
- Title
- Think and Grow Rich
- Publisher
- The Ralston Society
- Year
- 1 March 1937
- Pages
- 302
- Language
- English
- ISBN
- 9781585424337
- Shelf
- New Thought · Philosophy · Consciousness
Availability
By the same author
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