The Richest Man in Babylon
"For every ten coins thou placest within thy purse take out for use but nine: Thy purse will start to fatten at once and its increasing weight will feel good in thy hand and bring satisfaction to thy soul."
— George S. Clason, The Richest Man in Babylon (1926)
Introduction
| The Richest Man in Babylon | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Full title | The Richest Man in Babylon |
| Author | George S. Clason |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Personal finance; Saving and investment; Parables |
| Genre | Nonfiction; Self-help |
| Publisher | Plume |
Publication date | 30 June 1989 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (paperback); e-book; audiobook |
| Pages | 160 |
| ISBN | 978-0-452-26725-1 |
| Goodreads rating | 4.2/5 (as of 10 November 2025) |
| Website | penguinrandomhouse.com |
The Richest Man in Babylon is a 1926 personal-finance book by George S. Clason that dispenses advice through parables set in ancient Babylon; the material began as pamphlets widely distributed by banks and insurers and was collected as a book that year.[1] It packages recurring frameworks—especially the “Seven Cures for a Lean Purse” and the “Five Laws of Gold”—and foregrounds the “pay yourself first” approach.[2] A widely available paperback (Plume, 30 June 1989) runs 160 pages and carries ISBN 978-0-452-26725-1.[3][4] The prose is plain and proverbial, using short parables to anchor habits of thrift, budgeting, and cautious investing.[5] By 2004, the book had sold more than two million copies.[6] It remains visible on investor reading lists, including The Wall Street Journal’s “The Best Books for Investors” (15 August 2014).[7]
Chapters
Chapter 1 – Foreword
🧾 The book opens by tying national prosperity to the everyday prosperity of individual households and promises practical help for “lean purses” through clear, usable principles set in ancient Babylon. It frames success as the product of preparation, effort, and understanding, and positions the parables as a compact guide to acquiring money, keeping it, and letting surpluses earn more. The foreword takes readers back to Babylon, described as the cradle where basic financial principles were first nurtured and later used the world over. It notes that business leaders passed these tales along widely to friends, relatives, employees, and associates, endorsing them for their practicality. The section stresses that Babylon’s wealth arose because its citizens valued money and applied sound methods for saving, safeguarding, and investing. The tone is plain and proverbial and invites readers to test the ideas in daily life. Durable wealth rests on simple rules executed with discipline, where clear understanding feeds steady habits that turn intention into results; the parables make those rules concrete and repeatable across eras. Our prosperity as a nation depends upon the personal financial prosperity of each of us as individuals.
Chapter 2 – Man who desired gold
💭 Bansir, a chariot builder in Babylon, sits on the low wall outside his home, staring at a half-finished chariot while the hot Euphrates sun beats down and his wife’s glances remind him the meal bag is nearly empty. Around him rise the palace walls and the painted tower of the Temple of Bel, while noisy processions of water carriers on the king’s business crowd the streets. His friend Kobbi, a musician with a lyre, arrives and asks for a small loan, only to learn Bansir’s purse is as empty as his own. Bansir describes a dream in which his belt hung heavy with coins and his wife’s face shone with happiness, then confesses the rebellion he felt on waking to an empty purse after years of hard labor. The two men lament living in the richest city in the world while having nothing to show, and they weigh how long they will continue “working, working, working” without progress. They scan the street’s workers and realize they differ little from them in freedom or prospects. Kobbi mentions passing their old friend Arkad riding in a golden chariot, reputed to be the richest man in all Babylon and so wealthy the king seeks his counsel for the treasury. Seeing in Arkad a working model, they resolve to ask how to build incomes for themselves and to bring along other friends who have fared no better. Honest recognition of scarcity sparks a search for know-how, and social learning—seeking instruction from someone who has mastered the craft—breaks the cycle of unproductive toil. By shifting from resignation to inquiry, the story states the book’s theme: wealth begins when one decides to learn and act differently. We are weary of being without gold in the midst of plenty.
Chapter 3 – Richest man in Babylon
👑 Arkad, famed for wealth and liberality, tells friends that they once stood as equals in youth but that he prospered by learning the laws that govern wealth. He recounts taking work as a scribe in the hall of records, where the moneylender Algamish commissioned a copy of the Ninth Law and promised two coppers if it were finished in two days. Bargaining for instruction, Arkad worked through the night and received a principle that would change his life: keep for himself a set portion of every earning. He began hiding one coin from each ten despite temptations from merchants bringing goods from Phoenicia, and a year later admitted he had entrusted his savings to Azmur the brickmaker to buy jewels in Tyre—only to be cheated with worthless glass. Chastened by Algamish, he saved anew and then placed funds with Aggar the shield maker to buy bronze, receiving rental every fourth month, until another rebuke taught him not to “eat the children” of his savings with feasts and finery. Years later, after proving he could live on less than he earned, seek expert counsel, and make money work, Algamish sent him to Nippur to manage lands and eventually made him partner and heir, a trust Arkad justified by increasing the estate’s value. To skeptical friends, Arkad rejects vague willpower and defines it as the unflinching purpose to complete even trifling tasks, then urges them to repeat the rule daily until it governs their choices. He argues that wealth grows wherever men expend energy—brickmakers, laborers, artists, and merchants all share in new value—and that the limit to growth cannot be foretold. Disciplined self-payment and competent investment drive the results: divert a fixed share of income to savings, take counsel only from those skilled, and let earnings beget further earnings. Coupling rule-based saving with selective expertise and steady purpose ties personal agency to compounding wealth. A part of all you earn is yours to keep.
Chapter 4 – Seven cures for a lean purse
🧰 At the king’s command to spread prosperity, Arkad gathers one hundred chosen men in Babylon and teaches a compact program he calls the “seven cures.” He begins with the discipline of keeping at least one-tenth of every coin earned so the purse grows heavier by design, not chance. He then requires a written plan to live within nine-tenths, warning that unchecked desires expand to consume any income. Next he shows how savings must be put to work so money bears “children,” turning wages into capital that earns more capital. He insists on guarding principal by seeking counsel from those skilled in a venture and by shunning alluring promises of impossible returns. He urges families to turn rent into equity by making a home a profitable investment, with payments arranged to fit the budget. He instructs men to secure future income for old age and dependents through dependable holdings and protections. Finally, he presses the habit of increasing earning power through study, practice, and reputation so larger opportunities appear. Together the cures convert earnings into durable wealth by pre-committing a fixed share, budgeting with restraint, employing capital prudently, and compounding returns. The behavioral and economic loop is tight: habits create surpluses, and surpluses, wisely placed, create income streams that reinforce the habits.
Chapter 5 – Meet the goddess of good luck
🍀 During New Year festivities in Babylon, merchants, craftsmen, and scribes gather in a wealthy home to trade stories about why luck visits some and bypasses others. One man recounts how delay cost him a profitable purchase that a quicker rival secured, while another admits that a rare windfall at games of chance never changed his fortunes. The group separates the thrill of gambling from opportunities that can be sized up and accepted in time. Voices around the room return to the same pattern: hesitation, bargaining for tomorrow, and waiting for surer terms let opportunity pass, while modest, prompt commitments—made with judgment—open the way to further chances. They conclude that luck is not a mystical force but a name men give to the outcomes of swift, informed decisions. Preparation joined to decisiveness attracts opportunity and compounds into reputation and deal flow; within the book’s theme, “luck” is a learned posture—be ready, act quickly when the odds are sound, and decline what you do not understand. Men of action are favored by the goddess of good luck.
Chapter 6 – Five laws of gold
📜 When his son Nomasir reaches manhood, Arkad gives him a bag of gold and a clay tablet inscribed with five laws, sending him to Nineveh for ten years to prove his judgment. Nomasir squanders the first stake by trusting smooth talk and ventures he does not understand, then rebuilds by applying the tablet’s rules until he can return with wealth and the tablet intact. The laws themselves read like contract terms: save not less than a tenth to build an estate for the future; give savings profitable employment so they multiply; keep capital under the protection of wise counsel; avoid ventures outside your knowledge or not approved by those skilled in their keep; and refuse schemes that promise impossible earnings. The narrative anchors each law in consequences—lost principal when advice came from the unqualified, steady income when gold was placed with capable hands, and expanding opportunity once a reputation for prudence took hold. Enduring wealth follows rules that govern how capital behaves: save a high share, employ it competently, control risk, and reinvest. These laws bind the parables into a portable framework any earner can apply across cities and seasons. Gold laboreth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field.
Chapter 7 – Gold lender of Babylon
🏦 Rodan, the spearmaker of old Babylon, strides from the palace with fifty pieces of gold—the king’s reward for a new point on the royal guard’s spears—then seeks counsel from Mathon, the lender of gold and dealer in jewels and rare fabrics. Besieged by pleas to share his windfall, he worries most about his sister’s request to stake her husband Araman as a merchant. Mathon answers with a fable of the ox and the ass to warn that helping a friend can become doing his work and bearing his burdens. He unlocks a token box to show pledges from borrowers: a talkative matron’s jewels for her son’s caravan venture that failed, a pack-rope knot from Nebatur the camel trader as proof of reliable judgment, and a turquoise beetle from an over-eager youth who borrowed beyond his skill. “Youth is ambitious,” Mathon says, but hopeless debt is a pit; the lender must have safe repayment, not mere hopes. He tests borrowers for competence—could a would-be trader buy rugs cheaply in Smyrna and sell at a fair price?—and insists on security before gold leaves the pouch. To Rodan he advises keeping the gift unless a solid plan and pledge stand behind any loan, and if lending, to spread risk and avoid usurious promises. Credit is not charity: sound lending weighs character, knowledge, collateral, and a clear path to repayment. Prudence protects capital so it can serve worthy enterprise without being lost to impulse or pity. BETTER A LITTLE CAUTION THAN A GREAT REGRET
Chapter 8 – Walls of Babylon
🧱 Old Banzar, a scarred veteran, guards the passage to the city wall while Assyrian armies batter bronze gates with rams and pour arrows by the thousands; the king and Babylon’s main forces are far to the east against the Elamites. Citizens throng the gate: a trembling merchant fears for his goods, a young mother clutches a babe while boiling oil splashes down on ladder scalers, and a small girl asks if they will be safe. Banzar answers each the same: the walls are high and strong, raised for people like them—“the good Queen Semiramis built them over a hundred years ago”—and they will hold. Reinforcements tramp by with bronze shields as wounded men descend; for three weeks and five days the fighting surges without cease. On the fifth night of the fourth week, dawn shows dust clouds of the retreating enemy; from the high tower of the Temple of Bel, flames of victory flare and a blue column of smoke carries the message over the city. The narrative widens to say Babylon endured because it was fully protected, not because danger was absent. It draws a modern parallel to “impregnable walls” built from insurance, savings accounts, and dependable investments that guard families from tragedy. Build defenses before crisis: durable financial moats turn fear into staying power, and safeguarding first ensures prosperity survives the siege. WE CANNOT AFFORD TO BE WITHOUT ADEQUATE PROTECTION
Chapter 9 – Camel trader of Babylon
🐫 Hungry after two days without food and chastened for pilfering figs, Tarkad crosses the market and runs into Dabasir, the tall, bony camel trader from whom he owes two coppers and a piece of silver. Dabasir sits him down to eat and tells how he once began as a saddle maker, lived beyond his earnings, and sank into debt until even his wife left; chasing easy wealth, he fell in with caravan robbers, was captured, and sold in Damascus to a Syrian desert chief. Paraded before the master’s four wives for judgment, he was saved from mutilation when the first wife, Sira, needed a camel tender; she asked whether he had the soul of a free man or a slave. Her question burned: if he would repay his just debts and reclaim honor, he must act as a free man. With Sira’s aid he escaped by night with two camels, slogged nine days across barren, waterless country, and, near collapse, chose to rise, turn north, and find Babylon. Back home he visited each creditor to beg patience, then used his hard-won skill with camels—helped by the gold lender Mathon and the trader Nebatur—to earn honestly until every copper and piece of silver was repaid. The story links identity to action: self-respect grows when promises are kept, and kept promises open doors to work that restores standing. Determination translated into a concrete plan—face creditors, earn with competence, and persist—lets effort compound into freedom. WHERE THE DETERMINATION IS, THE WAY CAN BE FOUND
Chapter 10 – Clay tablets from Babylon
🗿 On a full-moon night in Babylon, Dabasir carves a record into wet clay to guide his life after returning from slavery in Syria, resolving to clear his “many just debts” and regain respect. On Tablet I he sets a three-part plan under the counsel of Mathon, the gold lender: keep one-tenth of all earnings, live on seven-tenths with his loyal wife, and devote two-tenths to creditors each month. Tablet II lists names and amounts—Fahru the cloth weaver (2 silver, 6 copper), Sinjar the couch maker (1 silver), Alkahad the house owner (14 silver), Mathon the gold lender (9 silver), Birejik the farmer (1 silver, 7 copper)—and totals 119 pieces of silver and 141 of copper owed. He visits each man to promise two-tenths every full moon, then earns nineteen pieces of silver in one month buying camels of “sound wind and good legs” for Nebatur. After three moons he holds savings of his own and reports that even stern Alkahad accepts regular payments when told a well-fed debtor pays faster. He endures lean months without new raiment, then good months that let him reduce debts by more than eight pieces of silver at a time. On Tablet V, twelve moons after the vow, he celebrates paying the last coin and notes how creditors’ contempt turned to respect, including Alkahad’s admission that Dabasir is now “a piece of bronze capable of holding an edge.” The plan’s rhythm—save, live within bounds, repay—restores money, self-respect, and marriage at once. A strict allocation of income turns chaos into progress by funding savings first, capping lifestyle at seven-tenths, and automating repayment so effort compounds into solvency. Great is the plan for it leadeth us out of debt and giveth us wealth which is ours to keep.
Chapter 11 – Luckiest man in Babylon
🎲 Sharru Nada, merchant prince of Babylon, rides at the head of his caravan from Damascus beside Hadan Gula, the jeweled grandson of his late partner Arad Gula, and worries how to steer the youth away from idleness. Pointing toward the distant tower of the Temple of Bel, he answers the young man’s taunt that “work was made for slaves” by telling how he had once been sold as a slave with bronze collar and chain. Marched four abreast past the walls to the slave pens, he learned from Megiddo the farmer that work well done becomes a man’s best friend. Bought by Nana-naid the baker, he mastered grinding barley, making dough, and selling honey cakes two for a penny, then proposed an afternoon peddling venture to split profits. Customers grew—among them Arad Gula, who praised his enterprise—and pennies filled the belt-purse until a moneylender abruptly sold him to Sasi for labor on the Grand Canal, where heat and overwork almost broke his spirit. Reclaimed at last by Arad Gula, he watched the clay title tablet shatter into dust and entered a partnership that began with rug routes and ended in wealth and civic honor. Near Babylon’s bronze gates, Hadan Gula understands that his grandfather’s “key to the golden shekels” was not jewels but the joy of hard work, and he strips off his baubles in resolve to start humbly. Fortune favors industrious character over ornament: choose work as an ally, stack trustworthy effort into reputation, opportunity, and partnership. Within the book’s theme, work becomes the engine that transforms servitude into stewardship. I knew I was the luckiest man in Babylon.
Chapter 12 – Historical sketch of Babylon
🏺 The sketch recasts Babylon not as a city of natural abundance but as a human-made achievement in a flat Euphrates valley short on rain, forests, and stone. Engineers diverted the river with dams and immense irrigation canals, then drained swamps at the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris to extend farmland, while rulers defended rather than merely plundered. Archaeologists date written civilization in the region back 8,000 years and link tablets describing an eclipse to modern astronomical calculations, tying their calendar to ours. Herodotus supplies the outsider’s description of fertile fields and unusual customs, and tablets themselves—six by eight inches and an inch thick—preserve everything from laws and deeds to promissory notes and personal letters. The walls, first credited to Queen Semiramis and later rebuilt on a grander scale under Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar, were reported 160 feet high and so broad that a six-horse chariot could drive atop them for nine to eleven miles. The city’s arts ranged from bronze weapons to jewelry now in museums, and its finance included early money, promissory notes, and written titles. Babylon fell not by storming the walls but when Cyrus entered open gates after the Babylonian army marched out and was defeated in the field. Babylon’s wealth was a product of organized skill, record-keeping, and infrastructure; collective investment—in irrigation, walls, and writing—multiplied a scant environment into durable prosperity. In this context, the city shows how disciplined systems, not luck, secure abundance over time. The eons of time have crumbled to dust the proud walls of its temples, but the wisdom of Babylon endures.
—Note: The above summary follows the “original edition” reprint, which reproduces the classic contents order (Dauphin Publications, 2015; ISBN 9781939438638).[8]
Background & reception
🖋️ Author & writing. George S. Clason was a Denver businessman and map publisher who founded the Clason Map Company and issued the first road atlas of the United States and Canada.[9] Beginning in 1926, he wrote pamphlets on thrift and financial success told as parables set in ancient Babylon; banks and insurance companies distributed them widely.[10] The most popular pieces were later collected as The Richest Man in Babylon, and George S. Clason is widely credited with popularizing the injunction to “pay yourself first.”[11] The book’s recurring devices—especially the “Seven Cures for a Lean Purse” and the “Five Laws of Gold”—organize advice on budgeting, disciplined saving, prudent lending, and skill-building.[12] Its voice is intentionally plain and proverbial, “in simple everyday language.”[13]
📈 Commercial reception. By 2004, the title had sold more than two million copies.[14] Reprints have proliferated; Hawthorn issued a c.1955 edition.[15] New American Library also published mass-market editions in 1988.[16] The Wall Street Journal continued to spotlight the book on “The Best Books for Investors” list (15 August 2014).[17]
👍 Praise. The Los Angeles Times recommended the book as a “delightful set of parables that explain the basics of money.”[18] The Washington Post has called it “full of time-tested advice on saving and investing.”[19] The The Wall Street Journal has highlighted it for story-driven lessons in personal finance.[20]
👎 Criticism. Commentators note that “pay yourself first” can be impractical for people with irregular incomes or very tight budgets and may need adaptation.[21] Researchers also argue the book’s implicit “save 10%” heuristic is often too low; Brookings suggests older starters target 15–20% to retire securely.[22] Housing analysts further caution that the book’s injunction to “make of thy dwelling a profitable investment” is not universally sound: a primary home is not reliably an investment.[23]
🌍 Impact & adoption. The Washington Post launched its “Color of Money Book Club” in 2002 with this title as the first selection (online discussion 23 October 2002).[24] The The Wall Street Journal list noted above has kept it in circulation with new investor audiences.[25] University entrepreneurship resources also continue to recommend it as a concise primer.[26]
Related content & more
YouTube videos
CapSach articles
Enjoyed this page?
📚If this page The Richest Man in Babylon inspired or helped you today, a small coffee helps us keep creating and sharing more. Your support truly matters.👏
References
- ↑ Singletary, Michelle (28 September 2002). "Investing by the Book". The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ Elkins, Kathleen (23 December 2015). "5 truths about money, from a 90-year-old personal finance classic". Business Insider. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "The Richest Man in Babylon". Penguin Random House. Plume. 30 June 1989. Retrieved 10 November 2025.
- ↑ "The richest man in Babylon". WorldCat. OCLC. Retrieved 10 November 2025.
- ↑ "Penguin Select Classics: The Richest Man in Babylon". Penguin Random House SEA. Penguin Random House SEA. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "How-to-succeed books". EBSCO Research Starters. EBSCO. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "The Best Books for Investors". The Wall Street Journal. 15 August 2014. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "The richest man in Babylon: original edition". Internet Archive. Retrieved 8 November 2025.
- ↑ "George S. Clason". Penguin Random House. Penguin Random House. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "George S. Clason". Penguin Random House SEA. Penguin Random House SEA. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ Mangla, Ismat Sarah (20 October 2016). "The world's most popular money tip came from a map-maker whose business got crushed by the Great Depression". Quartz. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ Elkins, Kathleen (23 December 2015). "5 truths about money, from a 90-year-old personal finance classic". Business Insider. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "Penguin Select Classics: The Richest Man in Babylon". Penguin Random House SEA. Penguin Random House SEA. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "How-to-succeed books". EBSCO Research Starters. EBSCO. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "The richest man in Babylon". WorldCat. OCLC. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "The richest man in Babylon". WorldCat. OCLC. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "The Best Books for Investors". The Wall Street Journal. 15 August 2014. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "Weekend Reading". Los Angeles Times. 16 July 1999. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ Singletary, Michelle (25 November 2006). "Give Books That Make a Difference". The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "My Five Favorite Books to Help You Build Wealth". The Wall Street Journal. 27 March 2019. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ Bird, Beverly (19 May 2025). "Are You Paying Yourself First? Here's What It Means and Why You Should Do It". Investopedia. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ Gotbaum, Joshua (5 June 2019). "The new math of saving for retirement may boil down to this one, absurdly simple rule". Brookings Institution. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ Karabell, Zachary (13 September 2013). "A House Is a Home—Not an Investment". The Atlantic. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "Book Club's First Selection". The Washington Post. 2 October 2002. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "The Best Books for Investors". The Wall Street Journal. 15 August 2014. Retrieved 9 November 2025.
- ↑ "The Richest Man In Babylon". Regent University Entrepreneurial Studies. Regent University. Retrieved 9 November 2025.