Wallace Wattles wrote The Science of Getting Rich in 1903, with his perspective on accumulating wealth surviving for over 115 years. He describes that getting rich is a science, with an exact formula and steps to doing so. Wallace focuses this “science” on value creation and creativity rather than competition. Below are the quotes that I derived the most value from. The quotes in bold were my personal favorites. Enjoy!
***Disclaimer: I do not claim to own the rights to this book. All content below is owned by Wallace Wattles and Jon Rose Publishing.***
If anybody else in your town can get rich, so can you; and if anybody else in your state can get rich, so can you.
There is an abundance of opportunity for the man that will go with the tide, instead of trying to swim against it.
Man is a thinking center, and can originate thought. All the forms that man fashions with his hands must first exist in his thought; he cannot shape a thing until he has thought that thing.
To think according to appearances is easy; to think truth regardless of appearances is laborious, and requires the expenditure of more power than any other work man is called upon to perform.
Every fact we learn leads us to the learning of another fact; knowledge is continually increasing. Every talent we cultivate brings to the mind the desire to cultivate another talent; we are subject to the urge of life, seeking expression, which every drives us on to know more, to do more and to be more.
You are to become a creator, not a competitor; you are going to get what you want, but in such a way that when you get it every other man will have more than he has now.
Riches secured on the competitive plane are never satisfactory and permanent; they are yours today, and another’s tomorrow. 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, and that you must exert yourself to get laws passed to stop this process and so on; in that moment you drop into the competitive mind, and your power to cause creation is gone for the time being; and what is worse, you will probable arrest the creative movements you have already instituted.
You cannot give every man more in cash market value than you take from him, but you can give him more in use value than cash value for the thing you take from him.
Give every man more in use value than you take from him in cash value; then you are adding to the life of the world by every business transaction.
The law of gratitude is the natural principle that action and reaction are always equal, and in opposite directions.
The grateful outreach of your mind in thankful praise is a liberation or expenditure of force; it cannot fail to reach that to which it addressed, and the reaction is an instantaneous movement towards you.
Gratitude will lead your mind out along the ways by which things come; and it will keep you in close harmony with creative thought and prevent you from falling into competitive thought.
To permit you mind to dwell upon the inferior is to become inferior and to surround yourself with inferior things. On the other hand, to fix your attention on the best is to surround yourself with the best, and to become the best.
Playing the Infinite Game 