Since starting a business, I’ve been wanting to read this work by P.T. Barnum. I located it on the new pad, found it was free (part of Project Gutenberg), downloaded it, and started reading it yesterday. Last night, I put it down at page 78 of 98, thinking I still had about 15 minutes to go, but when I picked it up today, I found the final 18 pages were merely disclaimer/licensing stuffs.

So… the book. I’d recommend it to anyone and everyone. It’s not a simple read due to the aged language used, but it was certainly quick; probably took a little over an hour, and I read slowly. The contents is sort of organized like a blog; each “chapter” is an idea, and the text expounds upon it. Some are incredibly short, while others span many pages. The way it’s written, I think today it actually would be a blog…

The pad has a pretty nifty bookmarking/highlighting feature, which I began using about halfway through to annotate key bits. I also went back to note the things I had missed before discovering the feature… My major takeaways follow:

  • ”Idleness breeds bad habits.”
  • ”Let money work for you, and you have the most devoted servant in the world.”
  • ”There are some persons who are “born tired.” – I hope Caitlin shares this one at work.
  • ”Getting in debt for what you eat and drink and wear is to be avoided.”
  • ”The foundation of success in life is good health.”
  • ”There is one thing that nothing living except a vile worm ever naturally loved, and that is tobacco.” – Funny.
  • ”A handful of people, calling themselves the aristocracy, run up a false standard of perfection, and in endeavoring to rise to that standard, we constantly keep ourselves poor.”
  • ”Until you can get so that you can rely upon yourself, you need not expect to succeed.”
  • ”An animal with a split hoof must live upon grass and grain.” – Interesting science/survival bit.
  • ”You must exercise your caution in laying your plans, but be bold in carrying them out.”
  • ”There is no tool you should be so particular about as living tools.”
  • ”No man ought ever to indorse a note or become security, for any man, be it his father or brother, to a greater extent than he can afford to lose and care nothing about, without taking good security.”
  • ”Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business.”
  • ”To get rich, is not always equivalent to being successful.”

Bonus: Thanks to the book, I looked up, and learned about the Croton Aqueduct.