The Way to Wealth

Very short book that does a great job of extracting the parts of Franklin’s autobiography and almanac on matters relevant to setting yourself up for success in business. “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools learn in no other” is one of my favourite quotes from the book. Another one on the defence of state taxes: “We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly.”

The book is structured around 5 areas that you must master: (1) Industry; time is money, don’t post-pone work, and remember that many small strokes, fell great oaks, (2) Self-reliance; can be summed up as “a life of leisure is a life of laziness”, (3) Frugality; “a small leak will sink a great ship”, or “When you bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more. It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow”, (4) Charity: Help others, (5) Experience: Quote from above sums it up, in other words, read and pursue new knowledge!