Elbert Hubbard Quotes

Real life is in love, laughter, and work.

Woman's inaptitude for reasoning has not prevented her from arriving at truth; nor has man's ability to reason prevented him from floundering in absurdity.

A school should not be a preparation for life. A school should be life.

History: gossip well told.

Polygamy: An endeavour to get more out of life than there is in it

Be pleasant until ten o'clock in the morning and the rest of the day will take care of itself.

The Great Man is a man who lives a long way off.

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."

Most reformers wore rubber boots and stood on glass when God sent a current of Commonsense through the Universe.

We will not be dictated to by men with less intelligence, energy, initiative and ambition than we ourselves possess.

Reversing your treatment of the man you have wronged is better than asking his forgiveness.

The man who craves disciples and wants followers is always more or less of a charlatan. The man of genuine worth and insight wants to be himself; and he wants others to be themselves, also.

Wealth: A cunning device of Fate whereby men are made captive, and burdened with responsibilites from which only Death can file their fetters.

Men are rich only as they give. He who gives great service gets great rewards.

A college degree does not lessen the length of your ears; it only conceals it.

Never explain - your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

The finest flowers are those transplanted, for transplanting means difficulty, a readjusting to new conditions, and through the effort put forth to find adjustment does the plant progress.

Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.

No book is of much importance; the vital thing is, What do you yourself think?

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

We are punished by our sins, not for them.

A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.

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

The path of civilization is paved with tin cans.

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

It does not make much difference what a person studies-all knowledge is related, and the man who studies anything, if he keeps at it, will be learned.

True life lies in laughter, love and work.

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

Gossip is only the lack of a worthy memory.

Genius is the capacity of avoiding hard work.

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

I would rather have a big burden and a strong back, than a weak back and a caddy to carry life's luggage.

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

Opportunities for education should be within the reach of every individual, not for the lucky few.

As we grow better, we meet better people.

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

Fear is the thought of admitted inferiority.

Men whose lives are doubtful want a strong government and a hot religion

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

Prosperity: that condition which attracts the lively interest of lawyers, and warrants your being sued for damages, or indicted, or both.

One can endure sorrow alone, but it takes two to be glad.

It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.

A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.

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.

Theology, by diverting the attention of men from this life to another, and by endeavoring to coerce all men into one religion, constantly preaching that this world is full of misery, but the next world would be beautiful - or not, as the case may be - has forced on men the thought of fear where otherwise there might have been the happy abandon of nature.

A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.

The friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.

I will gladly lecture for fifty dollars, but I'll not be a guest for less than a hundred.