Elbert Hubbard Quotes

What people need and what they want may be very different.

Souls are made of dawn-stuff and starshine.

The fool is not the man who merely does foolish things. The fool is the man who does not know enough to cash in on his foolishness.

The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.

Self-control is the ability to restrain a laugh at the wrong place.

It is the weak man who urges compromise - never the strong man.

The finest friendships are between those who can do without each other.

Strength and strength's will are the supreme ethic. All else are dreams from hospital beds, the sly, crawling goodness of sneaking souls.

Give us a religion that will help us to live - we can die without assistance.

Mystic: a person who is puzzled before the obvious, but who understands the non-existent.

People who are able to do their own thinking should not allow others to do it for them.

Habit: The great economizer of energy.

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

Play needs direction as well as work.

There was one who thought himself above me, and he was above me until he had that thought.

Growth is often a painful process.

If you don't advertise yourself you will be advertised by your loving enemies.

The poor and ignorant will continue to lie and steal as long as the rich and educated show them how.

Nature: The unseen intelligence which loved us into being, and is disposing of us by the same token

Responsibility is the price of freedom.

A little more patience, a little more charity for all, a little more devotion, a little more love; with less bowing down to the past, and a silent ignoring of pretended authority; brave looking forward to the future with more faith in our fellows, and the race will be ripe for a great burst of light and life.

Blessed is the man who has found someone to do his work.

A pessimist? That's a person who has been intimately acquainted with an optimist.

Picture in your mind the able, earnest, useful person you desire to be, and the thought you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular individual you so admire

To make mistakes is human, but to profit from them is divine.

Human service is the highest form of self-interest for the person who serves.

If you would escape moral and physical assassination, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing - court obscurity, for only in oblivion does safety lie.

We make our money out of our friends. Our enemies will not do business with us.

Man's greatest blunder has been in trying to make peace with the skies instead of making peace with his neighbors

If we cannot be happy and powerful and prey on others, we invent conscience and prey on ourselves.

Dogma is a lie reiterated and authoritatively injected into the mind of one or more persons who believe that they believe what someone else believes.

You can lead a boy to college, but you cannot make him think.

Punishment - The justice that the guilty deal out to those that are caught.

What we call God's justice is only man's idea of what he would do if he were God.

Men who marry for gratification, propagation or the matter of buttons or socks, must expect to cope with and deal in a certain amount of quibble, subterfuge, concealments, and double, deep-dyed prevarication.

Why not be a top-notcher? A top-notcher is simply an individual who works for the institution of which he is a part, not against it.

The man who doesn't relax and hoot a few hoots voluntarily, now and then, is in great danger of hooting hoots and standing on his head for the edification of the pathologist and trained nurse, a little later on.

Little minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds in the commonplace.

If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

I pray that I may never meddle, interfere, dictate, give advice that is not wanted, or assist when my services are not needed. If I can help people, I'll do it by giving them a chance to help themselves; and if I can uplift or inspire, let it be by example, inference and suggestion, rather than by injunction and dictation. That is to say, I desire to be Radiant
to Radiate Life!

Life is a paradox. Every truth has its counterpart which contradicts it; and every philosopher supplies the logic his own undoing.

The wise way to benefit humanity is to attend to your own affairs, and thus give other people an opportunity to look after theirs.

If you want work well done, select a busy man - the other kind has no time.

Life in abundance comes only through great love.

Some one has said that we are moving so fast that when plans are being made to perform some great feat, these plans are broken into by a youth who enters and says, I have done it.

A man who marries a woman to educate her falls victim to the same fallacy as the woman who marries a man to reform him.

To subjugate another is to subjugate yourself.

Nothing is permanent but change.

Philosophy rests on a proposition that whatever is is right. Preaching begins by assuming that whatever is is wrong.

Organized religion, being founded on superstition, is, perforce, not scientific. And all that which is not scientific - that is, truthful - must be bolstered up by force, fear and falsehood. Thus we always find slavery and organized religion going hand in hand.

The man who knows it can't be done counts the risk, not the reward.

Righteous indignation: your own wrath as opposed to the shocking bad temper of others

I have noticed that youngsters given to the climbing habit usually do something when they grow up

Where parents do too much for their children, the children will not do much for themselves.

An imitator is a man who succeeds in being an imitation.

One grows to the belief that, while woman's glory is in her hair, man's glory is to defeat some one. And if he can 'defeat with great slaughter' his monument is twice as high as if he had only visited on his brother man a plain undoing.

Would you make men better - set them an example. The millenium will never come until governments cease from governing, and the meddler is at rest.

Life consists in molting our illusions. We form creeds today only to throw them away tomorrow. The eagle molts a feather because he is growing a better one.

A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.

The art of winning in business is in working hard - not taking things too seriously.

The valuable person in any business is the individual who can and will cooperate with others.

Do not go out of your way to do good whenever it comes your way. Men who make a business of doing good to others are apt to hate others in the same occupation. Simply be filled with the thought of good, and it will radiate you do not have to bother about it, any more than you need trouble about your digestion.

Seeing with better eyes We can recognize that the offender is a valuable human being who struggles with the same needs, pressures, and confusions that we struggle with. We will recognize that the incident really may not have been about us in the first place. Instead it was about the wrongdoer's misguided attempt to meet his or her own needs. As we regard offenders from this point of view (regardless of whether they repent and regardless of what they have done or suffered), we will be in a position to forgive them.

No great spiritual event befalls those who do not summon it.

The Businessman is one who supplies something great and good to the world, and collects from the world for the goods.

Our finest flowers are often weeds transplanted.

No matter how long you live, die young.

Perfume: any smell that is used to drown a worse one.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

The teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons, and the true teacher is the learner.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.

Politicians regard the public as a cow to be milked

This will never be a civilized country until we expend more money for books than we do for chewing gum.

If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate.

You gain by giving - so give sympathy and cheerful loyalty to the institution. Be proud of it.

If you have health, you probably will be happy, and if you have health and happiness, you have all the wealth you need, even if it is not all you want.

A legal or religious ceremony by which two persons of the opposite sex solemnly agree to harass and spy on each other ... until death do them join.

Destruction, violence, ravages, murder, are perpetrated by statute law.

No one gets very far unless he accomplishes the impossible at least once a day.

Enthusiasm is like having two right hands.

Study: concentration of the mind on whatever will ultimately put something in your pocket.

Folks who never do any more than they get paid for, never get paid for any more than they do

We never ask God to forgive anybody except when we haven't.

The mintage of wisdom is to know that rest is rust, and that real life is love, laughter, and work.

Professor [John] Tyndall once said the finest inspiration he ever received was from an old man who could scarcely read. This man acted as his servant. Each morning the old man would knock on the door of the scientist and call, 'Arise, Sir: it is near seven o'clock and you have great work to do today.

History: a collection of epitaphs.

Yesterday woman was a chattel. Now she is, in law, a minor. Tomorrow she will be free, or partially so
that is to say, as free as man.

Your neighbor is the man who needs you.

The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.

The more one knows, the more one simplifies.

Unleash your TRAVEL BEAST ... explore the world. It's time to begin your next adventure! No man needs a vacation so much as the person who has just had one.

Impossible things are simply those which so far have never been done.

Put yourself in the other man's place and then you will know why he thinks certain things and does certain deeds.

The difference in men does not lie in the size of their hands, nor in the perfection of their bodies, but in this one sublime ability of concentration: to throw the weight in one blow, to live eternity in an hour.

Gossip is vice enjoyed vicariously

In God's great vaudeville, Mother is the headliner.

We are punished by our sins, not for them.

Let a man once see himself as others see him, and all enthusiasm vanishes from his heart.

Parties who want milk should not seat themselves on a stool in the middle of the field in hope that the cow will back up to them.