Think and Grow Rich
Napoleon Hill · 1937
Personal Development
The Philosophy of Personal Achievement
Napoleon Hill spent twenty years interviewing over 500 of America's most successful people — Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Theodore Roosevelt — to distill the principles behind their achievements. The result is a philosophy of personal achievement that has sold over 100 million copies and launched the modern self-help genre.
Context & Background
Commissioned by Andrew Carnegie himself, Hill's research project became the most influential personal development book ever written. Its central premise — that thoughts, when combined with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire, can be translated into material wealth — has shaped every success book that followed.
Hill identified 13 principles of success, beginning with Desire (a burning obsession, not a mere wish) and Faith (visualizing and believing in the attainment of desire). His concept of the Mastermind — a group of like-minded individuals who meet regularly to support each other's goals — anticipated modern peer advisory groups and executive coaching. Autosuggestion and the subconscious mind chapters pioneered what would later become the visualization and positive thinking movements.
The book has been continuously in print since 1937. It directly inspired The Secret, Tony Robbins's work, and virtually every motivational speaker of the last eighty years. While some of its metaphysical claims have been challenged, its practical wisdom about goal-setting, persistence, and the power of belief continues to resonate.
Quotes from Think and Grow Rich
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