The Master-Key to Riches: Original Classic Edition

By Napoleon Hill and Mitch Horowitz

DISCOVER THE GREATEST “SCIENCE OF SUCCESS”—THE MASTER KEY WITHIN YOU—TO ACHIEVE WHAT YOU DESIRE!

In one of success master Napoleon Hill’s greatest books, The Master Key to Riches, he explores how to unlock the miraculous energies of thought—and explores why motivated people often fail to do so.

In this powerful original classic unabridged edition, introduced by PEN Award-winning historian and New Thought scholar Mitch Horowitz, you will discover Hill’s seventeen principles of success along with other lists and testaments. Discover:

How “applied faith” unlocks your highest potentials.

How to cultivate the kind of accurate thinking that leads to lasting success.

How the simple step of “going the extra mile” benefits you in undreamed of ways.

Why it is vital to concentrate your energies.

How to create a bridge between your own thoughts and Infinite Intelligence.

The prospering power of a Positive Mental Attitude.

And much more!

The Master Key to Riches is one of Napoleon Hill’s core works. It pro¬vides his complete philosophy of success, along with methods, insights, and ideas that show you how to avoid pitfalls and get the most from his teaching.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G&D Media
• Release date: Feb 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9781722527679

Napoleon Hill

Napoleon Hill was born in 1883 in a one-room cabin on the Pound River in Wise County, Virginia. He is the author of the motivational classics The Laws of Success and Think and Grow Rich. Hill passed away in November 1970 after a long and successful career writing, teaching, and lecturing about the principles of success. His lifework continues under the direction of the Napoleon Hill Foundation.

Book preview

PREFACE TO THIS EDITION

Hill’s Science of Success

By Mitch Horowitz

This is probably the most unusual book Napoleon Hill ever wrote. He dramatically presents its text as a speech delivered by a masked rich man, who decides to share his wealth secrets with the world. In using this device, Hill was borrowing a theme that has long been popular in America’s alternative spiritual culture—placing lessons in the mouth of a mysterious master, who may be real, invented, or a mixture of both.

Hill’s unknown speaker is basically a personification of the voice of practical wisdom that ran through all of his books. In The Master-Key to Riches, the speaker captures the essentials of Hill’s ideas and adds some additional insights that came to Hill when he published this book in 1945, toward the end of World War II, with America’s Great Depression finally becoming a memory and his classic work, Think and Grow Rich, eight years behind him.

As in the case of all of Hill’s books, you can more or less glean the totality of his philosophy from any single work, including The Master-Key to Riches, which outlines the teacher’s seventeen principles of success, along with other lists and testaments that guide you toward effectiveness, attainment, and achievement. The Master-Key to Riches is notable among Hill’s books in that it features more lists and bulleted points than ever before and does so in a pleasingly compressed form so that the work serves as an introduction to the newcomer and a refresher to the veteran. In my estimation, a reader always benefits from a review of Hill’s ideas, as each reading reveals something new or previously overlooked. I write that from personal experience.

Another important aspect of this book is that it features what I consider Hill’s clearest and most sustained explanation of the power of applied faith. I have sometimes struggled with the idea of faith in Hill’s program. Chapter eight, Applied Faith, has proven especially helpful to me in that regard, and I direct you to pay close attention to it.

In this original unabridged classic edition, I now turn you over to the voice of Hill’s Masked Rich Man from Happy Valley, whose revelations and insights are the closest thing we have, and likely ever will, to a science of success.

MITCH HOROWITZ is the PEN Award-winning author of books including Occult America and The Miracle Club. A lecturer-in-residence at the University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles, Mitch introduces and edits G&D Media’s line of Condensed Classics and is the author of the Napoleon Hill Success Course series, including The Miracle of a Definite Chief Aim and The Power of the Master Mind. Visit him at MitchHorowitz.com.

The Prologue

I give and bequeath to the American people the greater portion of my vast fortune, which consists in the philosophy of individual achievement, through which all of my riches were accumulated …"

Thus began the last will and testament of the richest man that the richest nation on earth ever produced, and it now serves as the beginning of the prologue of a story which may well mark the most important turning-point in the lives of all who read it.

The story began in the late Fall of 1908, when Andrew Carnegie called in a man whom he trusted, and whose integrity and judgment he respected, and entrusted to him what Mr. Carnegie said was the greater portion of his vast fortune, with the understanding that the legacy was to be presented to the American people.

This story has been written to notify you of your right to share in this huge estate, and to inform you as to the conditions under which you may do so.

Lest you do the perfectly natural thing that many would do—that of reaching the false conclusion that the conditions under which you may share in this huge estate are too rigid to permit you to comply with them—let us relieve your mind by saying that the conditions are well within the reach of any adult of average intelligence, and there are no tricks or false hopes, either in connection with the conditions or in this promise.

So that you may know whether or not this promises anything you need or desire, we hasten now to tell you precisely what it does promise, viz:

A clear description of the formula by which you may have the full benefit of the Master-Key to Riches—a key that should unlock the doors to the solution of all of your problems, that will help you convert all of your past failures into priceless assets, and lead you to the attainment of the twelve great riches, including economic security.

An inventory of the vast riches which Andrew Carnegie provided for distribution to those who are qualified to receive them, together with detailed instructions through which you may appropriate and use your full share.

A description of the means by which you may have the full benefit of the education, experience and technical skill of those whose co-operation you may need for the attainment of your major purpose in life, thus providing a practical means by which you may bridge the disadvantages of an inadequate education and attain the highest goals of life as successfully as may those who are blessed with a formal education.

The privilege of using the philosophy of success which was organized from the life experiences, by the trial and error method, of more than five hundred successful men, among whom are Henry Ford, Thomas A. Edison. William Wrigley, Jr., Cyrus H. K. Curtis, J. Ogden Armour, Elbert Hubbard, Charles M. Schwab, F. W. Woolworth, Frank A. Vanderlip, Edward Bok, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, Clarence Darrow and Luther Burbank.

A definite plan by which anyone who works for wages or a salary may promote himself into a higher income, with the full consent and co-operation of his employer.

A definite plan through which anyone who works for others may get into a business or a profession of his own, with more than average chances of success.

A definite plan through which any merchant may convert his customers into permanent patrons, and through their willing cooperation add new customers who will likewise become permanent.

A definite plan through which any salesman of life insurance, or of other useful service or merchandise, may convert his buyers into willing workers who will aid him in finding new clients.

A definite plan through which any employer may convert his employees into personal friends, under circumstances which will enable him to make his business more profitable for both himself and his employees.

You have here a clear statement of our promises, and the first condition under which you may benefit by these is that you read this book twice, line by line, and think as you read!

Nothing ever happens without a definite cause!

It was by no mere chance that the United States came to be known as the richest and the freest country of the world. This is a land of plenty because of definite, understandable causes, each of which we have clearly defined.

The desire for plenty may be selfish, but we all know that it is a natural desire. Andrew Carnegie understood this when he decided to give away his huge fortune, but guided as he was by the wisdom of a lifetime of practical experience in dealing with people, he safe-guarded his gift by attaching to it certain conditions with which all who receive any part of it must comply.

Mr. Carnegie adopted a novel method for the distribution of his riches because he recognized the weakness of mankind in wanting something for nothing. He knew that men in all walks of life, all down through the past, have been looking for a land flowing with milk and honey.

He also knew that the gift of riches in any form, without some sort of consideration in return, generally harms more than it benefits the one who receives it. Therefore he wisely attached to his gift certain conditions by which those who receive it are protected against this common weakness of desiring something for nothing.

Looking backward into the history of mankind, Mr. Carnegie recognized that this desire for something for nothing was the object of the search of the scouts who were sent out by Moses and Joshua, because the children of Israel, after they had worked in slavery in Egypt for many years, making brick without straw, had escaped the Pharaohs and were waiting, after a long period in the wilderness, for an opportunity to cross over the sea into the land of plenty.

The glowing description of plenty in that land served as the incentive which enabled their leaders, against strong opposition, to hold the solidarity of the people until they reached their objectives.

A counterpart of this same story is found in the migration of subdued people from Old England to the New World. They came not only in search of a land of material plenty, but for a land which afforded plenty of opportunities for the expression of personal initiative, freedom of worship, freedom of speech, and the very purpose of their migration served as an assurance of the success of the most outstanding step ever taken by any group in modern history.

They developed a land of plenty. The plenty came from their efforts simply because their endeavors were based upon a sound philosophy, a constructive objective which Andrew Carnegie recognized centuries later, and he not only converted it into a huge fortune for himself, but he left to the American people of today a simple set of rules—a Master-Key—by which they too may acquire riches.

Out of their pioneering toil down through the years the descendants of those pilgrims of progress have built a civilization never before known in the history of the world; a culture which exceeds the greatest culture of all times; standards of living which are higher than ever before known to mankind; conveniences, comforts, luxuries, opportunities available to the humblest person, such as the world had never known. All of these advantages were the result of a sound foundation—the foundation stones of a budding new democracy; something new under the sun; a modified form of perfect state which was destined to prove successful because it was practical.

Such a civilization had never before been known in the entire history of mankind. There have been many periods in history when the advance of civilization was heralded with glowing terms, yet the civilization of the particular age in each instance was confined to a relatively small percentage of the people.

The difference between each of these periods of the distant past and the present, which we of the New World enjoy, lies in the fact that the masses of people of the past were under the heels of sovereigns, many of whom were tyrants, while we enjoy a standard of living which was unknown even to the kings of those days.

Thus we represent a difference between the cultural eras of the past and the culture of today. Study if you will the picture of the advantages enjoyed by the American people today, even to the lowliest and the humblest. Free education, free entertainment, the radio, the automobile, the airplane, the network of free highways, advanced modes of communication, free worship—these and thousands of other advantages denied to the peasants of the past are now the common property of all of the people in America today.

This difference, which is due to the fundamental difference in motives and objectives, has been made possible because of practical developments under the American way of life which have never been experienced in Europe or in any other part of the Old World.

In America men and women have been free to follow the dictates of their own consciences; they have had freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of political convictions, freedom for the fullest exercise of their own personal initiative in any calling of their choice, and they have been protected by a form of government which assured them the fruits of their labors.

This has arisen out of the fact that freedom, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness constituted the basis of the development of our young republic, with its program of plenty as the goal of every citizen.

As workers began to express their personal initiative as individuals, and later as groups; later still for security and protection as corporations, with the capital financed by workers and non-workers, the people learned the art of salesmanship, the art of competition, the blessings of individual initiative, and the necessity of honest production to justify the art of advertising.

All of these factors combined have justified greater production at lower cost, that more people may afford to purchase American commodities, that more people may be engaged in manufacturing.

This, briefly stated, is the heart of the American system—a well-expressed faith, thrift, co-operation, confidence in each other, personal initiative, and a sense of fairness in human relationships.

In describing this story of the road to riches under the American way of life, it is necessary that the reader supply a part of the story by his own thoughts and by comparing our statements with his own experiences. This in turn makes it necessary for the reader to have a clear picture of the history of the American sources of riches in order that he may be sure of appropriating his share of those riches.

We are face to face with a New Social Order, and we may well recognize its nature, and anticipate if we can tell where it is leading us.

One thing of which we can be sure—that we wish no such New Order as the European dictators have forced upon their people. We have had liberty, freedom and the right to exercise personal initiative for so long that we could not, and we shall not, willingly give up these privileges.

Our feeling toward dictators, who get their power by robbing others of their right to liberty, was expressed eloquently by Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, in his appraisal of Napoleon, viz:

"A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon.

"It is a magnificent sepulcher of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity. I gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble in which rest at last the ashes of the restless man.

"I leaned upon the balustrade and thought of all the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.

"I saw him upon the banks of the Seine contemplating suicide.

"I saw him quelling the mob in the streets of Paris.

"I saw him at the head of the army of Italy.

"I saw him crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tricolor in his hand.

"I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the pyramids.

"I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags.

"I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snows and the cavalry of the wild beasts scattered his legions like winter’s withered leaves.

"I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster, driven by a million bayonets, clutched like a beast, banished to Elba.

"I saw him escape and retake an empire by the magnificent force of his genius.

"I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king, and I saw him a prisoner on the rock at St. Helena, with his arms calmly folded behind his back gazing steadfastly out upon the sad and solemn sea.

"And I thought of all the widows and orphans he had made; of all the tears that had been shed for his glory; of the only woman who had ever loved him torn from his heart by the ruthless hand of ambition.

And I said, I would rather have been a poor French peasant and worn wooden shoes; I would rather have lived in a hut with the vines growing purple in the amorous kisses of the autumn sun, with my loving wife knitting by my side as the day died out of the sky, with my children upon my knees and their arms about my neck; yes, I would rather have been that poor peasant and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder known as Napoleon the Great.

In this spirit do we approach the description of the Master-Key, from the use of which come all riches known to the American people.

Let it be known at the outset that when we speak of riches we have in mind all riches; not merely those represented by bank balances and material things.

We have in mind the riches of liberty and freedom, of which we have more than any other nation.

We have in mind the riches of human relationships through which every American citizen may exercise to the fullest the privilege of personal initiative in whatever direction he chooses; and the riches of the system of free enterprise which has made American industry the envy of the whole world; and the riches of a free press, free public schools and free churches.

Thus, when we speak of riches we have reference to the abundant life which is everywhere available to the people of the United States, and obtainable with a minimum amount of effort.

Meanwhile, let it be understood that we shall offer no suggestions to anyone as to the nature of the riches for which he should aim, nor the amount he should undertake to acquire.

Fortunately the American way of life offers an abundance of all forms of riches, sufficient in both quality and quantity to satisfy all reasonable human desires, but we sincerely hope that somehow every reader will aim for his share, not only of the things that money can buy, but of the things that money cannot buy!

It is with profound grief that we see so many of our fellowmen eating the husks and throwing away the rich grain of their American opportunity to live a full and abundant life, which consists of both the tangible and the intangible riches of a great nation such as ours.

We shall not undertake to tell any man how to live his life, but we know, from having observed both the rich and the poor of America, that material riches alone are no guarantee of happiness.

We have never yet found a truly happy person who was not engaged in some form of service by which others were benefited. And, we do know many who are wealthy in material things, but have not found happiness.

We mention these observations not to preach, but to quicken those who, because of the great abundance of material riches in America, take them for granted, and who have lost sight of the priceless things of life that are to be acquired only through the intangible riches we have mentioned.

Although the American people already enjoy the highest standard of living existing in the whole world, we are not satisfied with this standard, and we propose to describe how we believe it can be raised still higher.

Our belief is not based upon the false hope of something for nothing, but it is founded on a philosophy which has the advantage of having been tested and proved practical by more than five hundred of the most distinguished men of achievement this country has ever known—among them Andrew Carnegie.

The philosophy is inseparably associated with the legacy which Mr. Carnegie left to the American people, and we are prepared to prove its soundness because it has already been tested and is being tested daily by hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries located in practically every town, village and city of the United States and in many foreign countries.

CHAPTER ONE

The Beginning of All Riches

As Revealed by the Masked Rich Man from Happy Valley

The largest audience ever assembled in the history of mankind sat breathlessly awaiting the message of a mysterious man who was about to reveal to the world the secret of his riches.

In that audience were men who had tried and failed so often that they had all but lost hope!

And there were young men and young women—mere boys and girls—who were filled with hope and courage and eagerness to learn the way to riches.

There were doctors, lawyers, dentists, engineers and school teachers, waiting to hear what the speaker might have to say which would put them on the road to riches.

Clergymen of every religion on earth were there, with the hope that they might gather from the message of the speaker some inspirational ideas they could pass on to the members of their congregations.

Newspaper reporters were more numerous than bees; a great battery of cameras trained upon the speaker’s platform, and the newsreel men were present with their moving picture cameras and sound equipment.

There were taxicab drivers, mechanics, bricklayers, merchants, barbers, and newsboys, representing every trade and every calling on earth, and many of them had come from distant places.

Slowly the curtain began to rise, the Chairman walking to the speaker’s dais raised his hand for silence! The noise died down and a silent hush spread over the great audience.

The introduction of the speaker was brief. The Chairman simply said, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the honor to introduce to you the richest man in all the world. He has come to tell you about the MASTER-KEY TO RICHES.

The speaker walked briskly to the speaker’s dais.

He was dressed in a long black robe and wore a mask over his eyes.

His hair was of a grayish tint, and he appeared to be about sixty years of age.

He stood silently for a few moments, while the cameras flashed. Then, speaking slowly, in a voice soft and pleasing, like music, he began his message:

You have come here to seek the MASTER-KEY TO RICHES!

You have come because of that human urge for the better things in life, which is the common desire of all people.

You desire economic security which money alone can provide.

Some of you desire an outlet for your talents in order that you may have the joy of creating your own riches.

Some of you are seeking the easy way to riches, with the hope that you will find it without giving anything in return; that too is a common desire. But it is a desire I shall hope to modify for your benefit, as from experience I have learned that there is no such thing as something for nothing.

There is but one sure way to riches, and that may be attained only by those who have the MASTER-KEY TO RICHES!

This MASTER-KEY is an ingenious device with which those who possess it may unlock the door to the solution of all of their problems. Its powers of magic transcend those of the famous Aladdin’s Lamp.

It opens the door to sound health.

It opens the door to love and romance.

It opens the door to friendship, by revealing the traits of personality and character which make enduring friends.

It reveals the method by which every adversity, every failure, every disappointment, every mistaken error of judgment, and every past defeat may be transmuted into riches of a priceless value.

It kindles anew the dead hopes of all who possess it, and it reveals the formula by which one may tune in and draw upon the great reservoir of Infinite Intelligence, through that state of mind known as Faith.

It lifts humble men to positions of power, fame and fortune.

It turns back the hands of the