Weekend Reading: P. T. Barnum’s Art of Money Getting

In 1880, Phineas T. Barnum summed up a lifetime’s experience as a showman, entrepreneur, and politician in his short book, Art of Money Getting. I originally produced a Web edition of this book in 2002, and have just updated it to contemporary Web standards (XHTML Strict/CSS) with Unicode typography. In the process, I had an opportunity to re-read it, and once again found it wise, pithy, and inspiring. Barnum has an aphorism for every situation, and an amusing anecdote for each insight.
I particularly love the story in chapter 2 about meeting the showman in London who put him to shame and the story of the Irish harbour pilot in chapter 12,
Like the Irish pilot, on one occasion when the captain, thinking he was … Continue reading