The Science of Getting Rich

by Wallace D. Wattles

To look upon the appearances of poverty will produce corresponding forms in your own mind, unless you hold to the truth that there is no poverty; there is only abundance.

To think health when surrounded by the appearances of disease, or to think riches when in the midst of appearances of poverty, requires power; but he who acquires this power becomes a MASTER MIND. He can conquer fate; he can have what he wants.

There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe.

You must get rid of the last vestige of the old idea that there is a Deity whose will it is that you should be poor, or whose purposes may be served by keeping you in poverty.

We must get rich, so that we can live more.

You do not want to get rich in order to live swinishly, for the gratification of animal desires; that is not life. But the performance of every physical function is a part of life, and no one lives completely who denies the impulses of the body a normal and healthful expression.

You do not want to get rich solely to enjoy mental pleasures, to get knowledge, to gratify ambition, to outshine others, to be famous. All these are a legitimate part of life, but the man who lives for the pleasures of the intellect alone will only have a partial life, and he will never be satisfied with his lot.

You must get rid of the thought of competition. You are to create, not to compete for what is already created.

Remember, if you are to become rich in a scientific and certain way, you must rise entirely out of the competitive thought.

You must never think for a moment that the supply is limited. Just as soon as you begin to think that all the money is being “cornered” and controlled by bankers and others,

KNOW that there are countless millions of dollars’ worth of gold in the mountains of the earth, not yet brought to light; and know that if there were not, more would be created from Thinking Substance to supply your needs.

When you rise from the competitive to the creative plane, you can scan your business transactions very strictly, and if you are selling any man anything which does not add more to his life than the thing he gives you in exchange, you can afford to stop it.

First, you believe that there is one Intelligent Substance, from which all things proceed; second, you believe that this Substance gives you everything you desire; and third, you relate yourself to It by a feeling of deep and profound gratitude.

To permit your mind to dwell upon the inferior is to become inferior and to surround yourself with inferior things.

It is necessary, then, to cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you; and to give thanks continuously.

You must form a clear and definite mental picture of what you want; you cannot transmit an idea unless you have it yourself.

And by prayer I mean holding steadily to your vision, with the purpose to cause its creation into solid form, and the faith that you are doing so.

If you want to become rich, you must not make a study of poverty.

People must be taught to become rich by creation, not by competition.

No matter how horrible in seeming may be the conditions in certain countries, sections, or places, you waste your time and destroy your own chances by considering them. You should interest yourself in the world’s becoming rich.

If there is something that may be done to-day, and you do not do it, you have failed in so far as that thing is concerned; and the consequences may be more disastrous than you imagine.

Do, every day, ALL that can be done that day.

The more things you do, the worse for you, if all your acts are inefficient ones.

The man who is merely a “good” workman, filling his place to the very best of his ability, and satisfied with that, is valuable to his employer; and it is not to the employer’s interest to promote him; he is worth more where he is.

Guard your speech. Never speak of yourself, your affairs, or of anything else in a discouraged or discouraging way. Never admit the possibility of failure, or speak in a way that infers failure as a possibility.

When others are having hard times and poor business, you will find your greatest opportunities.

Train yourself to think of and to look upon the world as a something which is Becoming, which is growing; and to regard seeming evil as being only that which is undeveloped.

Man can form things in his thought, and by impressing his thought upon formless substance can cause the thing he thinks about to be created. In order to do this, man must pass from the competitive to the creative mind; otherwise he cannot be in harmony with the Formless Intelligence, which is always creative and never competitive in spirit.