"古有先秦陶朱公，近有晚清胡雪岩"。胡雪岩风云一生，与其同时代的陈代卿就评价说"游刃于官与商之间，追逐于时与势之中，品够了盛衰荣辱之味，尝尽了生死情义之遒"。在这一过程中，胡雪岩不仅掌握和运用了一套套成功的行商处事之道，而且留下了关于这些成事之道的精辟论述。这些论述语言充满机智，富于哲理，在今天仍然具有重要的错鉴意义。"Fan Li in the Pre-Qin era; Hu Xueyan in the Late Qing Dynasty". Hu Xueyan's lifetime was full of change. The contemporary Chen Daiqing evaluated that Hu "traveled between government and business with ease, pursued in the era and under the momentum, fully experienced prosperity, decline, honor and disgrace, furthest tasted life, death, love and righteousness". In the process, Hu not only mastered and applied the successful methods for doing business and dealing with the world, but also made brilliant expositions on these methods. Abundant in intelligence and philosophy, these expositions have been very referable till now.