Who was Napoleon Hill?
by John L. Dilbeck
Napoleon Hill (October 26, 1883 – November 8, 1970) is widely recognized as the founder of modern personal success literature. His most famous work,
Think and Grow Rich, is one of the best-selling books of all time.
He was born into poverty in Virginia and began his writing career at the age of 13 as a reporter for a small-town newspaper. He entered law school but had to withdraw because of finances.
In 1908, his career reached a turning point when he interviewed Andrew Carnegie, the richest man in the world at the time. Carnegie commissioned Hill to interview over 500 of the most successful men and women, in order to discover and publish a formula for success that could be duplicated by the average person.
For over twenty years Hill continued this research. In 1928, the forumula for success that Carnegie and Hill devised was published in
The Law of Success. The current version of this work comprises two volumes and well over 1,000 pages.
In 1937, Hill condensed his law of success into his most famous work,
Think and Grow Rich. This book is available in several editions and is still in print, having sold over 30 million copies.
There are 13 principles that are important to Hill's formula for success -- which is never explicitly described. Among these are the importance of overcoming common fears, developing a burning desire to achieve your dream, persistence in your efforts, the importance of autosuggestion and visualization, and others.
One of these principles is to join or form a Mastermind Group, comprised of a small number of people dedicated to the achievement of one or more goals. By working in positive harmony, the group is able to accomplish more than the individuals could. Carnegie attributed much of his success to his Mastermind.
Think and Grow Rich discusses this at some length.
Some of the common criticisms of the book are the lack of any modern examples, the metaphysical approach, and what some people classify as common sense.
There are many critics of this book.
However, some of the most successful people have consistently praised the book and many have said that reading it was an important part of their journey to success.
Napoleon Hill died in 1970 in South Carolina.
You can read more about him in the Wikipedia:
Napoleon Hill.
Famous Napoleon Hill Quotes
- Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.
- A goal is a dream with a deadline.
- All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea.
- Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.
- Knowledge has no value except that which can be gained by its application
- Education comes from within; you get it by struggle and effort and thought.
- Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.
- Don't wait. The time will never be just right.
- Action is the real measure of intelligence.
- Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together.
- Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.
- Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.
- Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.
- Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind's eye, and you will be drawn toward it.
- Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to cut all sources of retreat. Only by doing so can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a burning desire to win - essential to success.
- Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes.
- If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.
- If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.
- Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.
- It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served.
- Money without brains is always dangerous.
- More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.
- Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel.
- One must marry one's feelings to one's beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one's life.
- No man is ever whipped until he quits in his own mind.
- No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like.
- Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.
- Self-discipline begins with the mastery of your thoughts. If you don't control what you think, you can't control what you do. Simply, self-discipline enables you to think first and act afterward.
- Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.
- Success in its highest and noblest form calls for peace of mind and enjoyment and happiness which come only to the man who has found the work that he likes best.
- The battle is all over except the "shouting" when one knows what is wanted and has made up his mind to get it, whatever the price may be.
- The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.
- The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.
- The world has the habit of making room for the man whose actions show that he knows where he is going.
- Think and grow rich.
- Through some strange and powerful principle of "mental chemistry" which she has never divulged, nature wraps up in the impulse of strong desire, "that something" which recognizes no such word as "impossible," and accepts no such reality as failure.
- Understand this law and you will then know, beyond room for the slightest doubt, that you are constantly punishing yourself for every wrong you commit and rewarding yourself for every act of constructive conduct in which you indulge.
- There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.
- War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man.
- When your desires are strong enough you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve.
- You give before you get.
- You must get involved to have an impact. No one is impressed with the won-lost record of the referee.
- Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.
- Who said it could not be done? And tell me what great victories does he have to his credit which qualifies him to judge what can and can't be accomplished.
- One of the main weaknesses of mankind is the average man's familiarity with the word 'impossible.'
You owe it to yourself to get a copy of
Think and Grow Rich. It's available in just about every library, but I recommend buying this new version that has a comprehensive index and material that was left out of the smaller, condensed version that was the only one available for the last few decades.
I've read this book many times and I invariably give my copy to someone else when discussing it. The last copy I had was heavily underlined and hilighted. I'm sure the next one will be, too.
If you have a negative and cynical attitude, save your time. Don't bother reading the book, because it won't help you until you overcome those detrimental attitudes.
If you will read this book with the positive attitude necessary to achieving the success you deserve, it can be an important part of your journey to success, too.
All the best,
JD
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