Wealth & Money Quote by Orison Swett Marden

Marden is selling a moral hustle: the idea that character is not a decorative virtue but a competitive advantage. The quote stages an early crossroads narrative - manhood (and notably youth) as a moment when the market offers a shortcut and dares you to take it. By framing the choice as "honorable competence" versus "tainted wealth", he makes the dilemma feel both practical and cleanly binary: you can build skill and sleep at night, or you can cash out with a stain that will eventually show.

The subtext is pure turn-of-the-century self-help, when industrial capitalism was producing fortunes fast enough to make ethics feel optional. Marden, a major voice in that optimism-industrial complex, rehabilitates poverty by recasting it as a strategic position. "Starts out to be poor and honorable" isn't romanticizing deprivation; it's repositioning it as freedom from corruption's obligations. If you don't owe your rise to a crooked patron, a rigged deal, or a hush-money bargain, you keep something like mobility: you can pivot, you can be trusted, you can build a reputation that isn't hostage to exposure.

"One of the strongest elements of success" is the sales pitch in its final form. Honesty isn't promised as holiness; it's promised as leverage. Marden understands an anxious audience trying to reconcile ambition with decency. He offers a reassuring bargain: delay the payoff, keep your name clean, and the economy of reputation will compound like interest. It flatters the reader into believing integrity is not just right, but smart.