Good book. It is also a quick read. However, much of the wisdom that he shares is already abundant and the challenge is not in what to do to but acquiring the discipline to do it. I only wish the conversational language was a little simpler. ( )

作者以巴比倫最有錢的人(The Richest Man in Babylon，原書書名)之口
以故事的方式傳達基礎的理財概念
大綱是：把10%的錢留下來、減掉非必要支出、找專家把存下來的錢拿去投資
可能是因為原書是1926年出版的
套用到現在環境的話大概是比餓不死好一些吧
以現在的房價收入比，買房的難度……
--
每個篇章的結尾有「這樣做，才會有錢」由作者總結——原以為單純是這樣
直到讀到「有餘力的話，可以另外再購置一些房產做投資」故事中完全沒提到的內容
而故事中頂多提到「租房子不如貸款買間房子」
驚覺這部分不像是作者寫的內容
文中不時穿插「致富祕訣 XX」插入點也很奇怪，往往放在對話之間
不知原書是不是就這樣寫，不過這二部分我是當出版社亂加料就是了 ( )

In short this book is about...
1. Saving money and
2. Investing that money intelligently to make more money. ( )

This is THE book which I wish I started reading 10 years ago.... I dislike economics and yet this book made so much sense to me because it was filled with stories. Think of Aesop's fables - this book is kind of like that because each chapter is its own specific story so you can start reading chapter 5, followed by chapter two, then move on to chapter 9, followed by chapter 3 it doesn't really matter they are all individual stories that make sense by themselves no interconnection across them all.

Although when you start reading this book the first golden nugget -"A part of all your own is yours to keep" - is a very important lesson, for me this wasn't the most important lesson. I found the chapter on the camel trader of Babylon (where he talked about the soul of a slave versus the soul of a free man) and the final chapter on the luckiest man from Babylon to be the two chapters that really spoke to me.

I would definitely recommend to keep reading this book every three months just so that the concepts stay in your mind continuously. ( )

For a long time, I didn't understand this book; and I bet many of you didn't either.

Stylistically speaking this book is influenced, in a weird way, by Voltaire. Why you might ask?

The book, with its parables, captures something which is seldom caught in this kind of books: The human spirit.

This book doesn't talk only about money, this book also talks about advice, whom to trust and not trust, the value of work, how a man looks upon himself, various kinds of workers and father-child relationships.

Why is this, one might ask?

Well, it's because the author understood something that it's seldom understood: Being successful with gold and, what many call today, "philosophical Jimbo talk" about the value of work and man are strongly tied together.

My favourite story is near the end of a book, it's The Ca,eò Trader of Babylon.

"Where the determination is, the way can be found" this phrase doesn't capture the story.

Imagine being a slave in a desert, without water or food, you don't know where you are. Your master, if he finds you, will kill you. If you return to your hometown you will be assaulted by debt, this is if you can even find it.

In those desert sands, that slave saw the world through a different lens, a more active and abstract one.

When he returned to Babylon he was a changed man, he repaid all his debt (with time) and managed to become a wealthy merchant.

If there is but one thing that you can carry away from this book, be it this: Your problems don't matter, your attitude toward them matter. If you go through life with a slave soul, over-indulging in pleasures and running away from challenges your problems will devour you. If by contrast, you go through life with a free man soul, never overindulge or shrink from work, then your problem will go away. With time. It might take a whole, but you will get there, eventually.