Eight Pillars of Prosperity

By James Allen

In Eight Pillars of Prosperity, James Allen expands on his beliefs that our thoughts and dreams determine the sort of person we will become. Here he reveals in great depth and detail the exact qualities we must meditate upon in order to achieve lasting success. He believed that prosperity rests on eight pillars: Energy, Economy, Integrity, System, Sympathy, Sincerity, Impartiality, and Self-reliance. "A business built up on the faultless practice of all these principles," Allen writes, "would be so firm and enduring as to be invincible. Nothing could injure it; nothing could undermine its prosperity, nothing could interrupt its success."

“The moral virtues are the foundation and support of prosperity as they are the soul of greatness. They endure forever, and all the works of man which endure are built upon them. Without them there is neither strength, stability, nor substantial reality, but only ephemeral dreams.” – James Allen

• Language: English
• Publisher: G&D Media
• Release date: Aug 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781722523459

James Allen

James Allen was born in Leicester, England, in 1864. He took his first job at age 15 to support his family, after his father was murdered while looking for work in America. Allen was employed as a factory knitter and a private secretary until the early 1900s, when he became increasingly known for his motivational writing. His 1903 work As a Man Thinketh earned him worldwide fame as a prophet of inspirational thinking and influenced a who's-who of self-help writers, including Napoleon Hill.

Book preview

FIRST PILLAR

Energy

Energy is the working power in all achievement. Inert coal it converts to fire, and water it transmutes into steam; it vivifies and intensifies the commonest talent until it approaches to genius, and when it touches the mind of the dullard, it turns into a living fire that which before was sleeping in inertia.

Energy is a moral virtue, its opposing vice being laziness. As a virtue, it can be cultivated, and the lazy man can become energetic by forcibly arousing himself to exertion. Compared with the energetic man, the lazy man is not half alive. Even while the latter is talking about the difficulty of doing a thing, the former is doing it. The active man has done a considerable amount of work before the lazy man has roused himself from sleep. While the lazy man is waiting for an opportunity, the active man has gone out, met and utilized half-a-dozen opportunities. He does things while the other is rubbing his