Ian Nathaniel Puang's Key Ideas from The Richest Man in Babylon
by George Samuel Clason

1.Start thy purse to fattening

• For every ten coins thou placest within thy purse take out for use but nine (save 10% of your income)
• “Which desirest thou the most? Is it the gratification of thy desires of each day, a jewel, a bit of finery, better raiment, more food; things quickly gone and forgotten? Or is it substantial belongings. Gold, lands, herds, merchandise, income-bringing investments? The coins thou takest from thy purse bring the first. The coins thou leavest within it bring the latter”

2.Control thy expenditures

• what each of us calls our ‘necessary expenses' will always grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to the contrary.
• Budget thy expenses that thou mayest have coins to pay for the necessities, enjoyments and gratify thy worthwhile desires without spending more than nine tenth of thy earnigs

3.Make thy gold multiply

• The gold we may retain from our earnings is but the start. The earnings it will make shall build our fortunes
• A man's wealth is not in the coins he carries in his purse: it is in the income he buildeth

4.Guard thy treasures from loss

• We must first secure small amounts and learn to protect them before the god entrust us with larger
• The first sounds principle of investment is security for thy principal
• Be not misled by thine own romantic desires to make wealth rapidly

5.Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment

• Own thy own home

6.Insure a future income

• Provide in advance for the needs of thy growing age and the protection of thy family

7.Increase thy ability to earn

• Preceding accomplishment must be desire. Thy desires must be strong and definite. General desires are but weak longings
• Desires must be simple and definite. They defeat their own purpose should they be too many, too confusing, or beyond a man's training to accomplish
• That man who seeks to learn more of his craft shall be richly rewarded
• He must pay his debts with all the promptness within his power, not purchasing that for which he is unable to pay
• To cultivate thy own powers, to study and become wiser, to become more skillful, to so act as to respect thyself

• Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one-tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family 

• Gold laboreth diligently and contetedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field 

• Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling 

• Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in business or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep

• Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment 

Translation from tablets from excavation in the ruins of Babylon, about a man named Dabasir pay off all his debts and become a man of means worthy of respect

• One tenth of all i earn shall be set aside as my own to keep
• Seven-tenth of all I earn shall be used to provide a home, clothes to wear, and food to eat, worth a bit extra to spend, that or lives be not lacking in pleasure and enjoyment
• Each time the moon is full, two-tenth of all I have earned shall be divided honorably and fairly among those who have trusted me and to whom I am indebted