57 Principles

Napoleon Hill

1. A goal is a dream with a deadline.

2. Action is the real measure of intelligence.

3. All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea.

4. All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth. Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.

5. Before success comes in any man's life, he's sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit.

6. That's exactly what the majority of men do.

7. Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together.

8. Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.

9. Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.

10. Don't wait. The time will never be just right.

11. Education comes from within; you get it by struggle and effort and thought.

12. Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.

13. Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed on an equal or greater benefit.

14. 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.

15. Everyone enjoys doing the kind of work for which he is best suited.

16. Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.

17. Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind's eye, and you will be drawn toward it.

18. Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes.

19. If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.

20. If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.

21. 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.

22. Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.

23. Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.

24. Money without brains is always dangerous.

25. More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.

26. Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.

27. Nature cannot be tricked or cheated. She will give up to you the object of your struggles only after you have paid her price.

28. No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like.

29. No man is ever whipped until he quits in his own mind.

30. 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.

31. Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.

32. Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel.

33. Procrastination is the bad habit of putting of until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.

34. Self-disciplined 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.

35. Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.

36. 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.

37. 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.

38. The best way to sell yourself to others is first to sell the others to yourself.

39. The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.

40. 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.

41. The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat.

42. The world has the habit of making room for the man whose actions show that he knows where he is going.

43. There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.

44. There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.

45. Think and grow rich.

46. 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.

47. 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.

48. War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man.

49. We begin to see, therefore, the importance of selecting our environment with the greatest of care, because environment is the mental feeding ground out of which the food that goes into our minds is extracted.

50. When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.

51. When your desires are strong enough you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve.

52. Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent.

53. You can start right where you stand and apply the habit of going the extra mile by rendering more service and better service than you are now being paid for.

54. You give before you get.

55. You must get involved to have an impact. No one is impressed with the won-lost record of the referee.

56. Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession.

57. Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.