Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) was a popular American salesman, author, and philosopher from the turn of the twentieth century.
This self-described “businessman with a literary attachment” had an unusual career. Hubbard was a brilliant marketer and salesperson for a soap company. At age 37, he sold his shares in the company to establish an arts and crafts community called Roycroft in East Aurora, New York. Roycroft attracted publishers, bookbinders, and artisans who, although not paid well, had a great deal of freedom to experiment with and refine their trade-skills.
Hubbard wrote six novels and hundreds of inspirational biographical essays called Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great. His A Message to Garcia (1899) was a bestselling inspirational essay on sales and marketing. His satirical newspaper The Philistine had a monthly circulation of over 100,000.
In 1915, Hubbard died on a voyage from New York to Liverpool aboard the RMS Lusitania when a German submarine torpedoed it off the coast of Ireland.
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The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.
—Elbert Hubbard
Cultivate only the habits that you are willing should master you.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Habit
Anyone who idolizes you is going to hate you when he discovers that you are fallible. He never forgives. He has deceived himself, and he blames you for it.
—Elbert Hubbard
Live truth instead of professing it.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Truth, Hypocrisy
The ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Discipline
It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Ability
Be pleasant until ten o’clock in the morning and the rest of the day will take care of itself.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Morning
Don’t take life too serious. You’ll never escape it alive anyway.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Life
We find what we expect to find, and we receive what we ask for.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Expectation
Do not take life too seriously—you will never get out of it alive.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Carpe-diem, Life and Living
Life is a compromise between fate and free will.
—Elbert Hubbard
HISTORY: gossip well told.
—Elbert Hubbard
Knowledge is the distilled essence of our intuitions, corroborated by experience.
—Elbert Hubbard
The path of least resistance is what makes rivers run crooked.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Change
I believe in my own divinity—and yours.
—Elbert Hubbard
The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Planning, Work, Preparation, The Present
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.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Health
There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Ability, Motivation
Where parents do too much for their children, the children will not do much for themselves.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Parents
Genius is often only the power of making continuous efforts. The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it—so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience, would have achieved success. As the tide goes clear out, so it comes clear in. In business sometimes prospects may seem darkest when really they are on the turn. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Genius, Endurance, Failures, Resolve, Persistence, Failure, Perseverance, Success, Mistakes
It is the weak man who urges compromise—never the strong man.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Compromise
The point I wish to make is this: President William McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter & did not ask, Where is he at? By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze & the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thingCarry a message to Garcia!
—Elbert Hubbard
The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Getting Going, Procrastination, Inaction
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.
—Elbert Hubbard
Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer to your goal.
—Elbert Hubbard
If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate.
—Elbert Hubbard
What others say of me matters little, what I myself say and do matters much.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Character
Some men succeed by what they know; some by what they do; and a few by what they are.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Character, Success
Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding that limit.
—Elbert Hubbard
Fear clogs; Faith liberates.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Faith
Many a man’s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Character, Reputation, Hypocrisy
If you want work well done, select a busy man; the other kind has no time.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Time
He picked up the lemons that Fate had sent him and started a lemonade-stand.
—Elbert Hubbard
The secret of success is this: there is no secret of success.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Success & Failure
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.
—Elbert Hubbard
The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Government, Forgiveness
A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in on the experience.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Mistakes, Failure, Failures
Luck is tenacity of purpose.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Luck
If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of troubles.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Expectation, Anxiety, Worry
A friend is a person who knows all about you-and still likes you.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Friendship
Money never made a fool of anybody; it only shows them up.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Money
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy to be called an idea at all.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Ideas
Expert: One who limits himself to his chosen mode of ignorance.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Experts
The average man plays to the gallery of his own self-esteem.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Self-Discovery
We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Health, War, Attitude, Optimism, Positive Attitudes
To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Criticism, Action, Critics, Perfection
Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed — there’s so little competition.
—Elbert Hubbard
Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Character, Integrity, Sin
He who influences the thought of his times influences the times that follow.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Leadership
The church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture.
—Elbert Hubbard
Your friend is who man who knows all about you, and still likes you.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Friendship, Friends and Friendship
Habit is a form of exercise.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Habit
People who are able to do their own thinking should not allow others to do it for them.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Thinking
Constant effort and frequent mistakes are the stepping stones of genius.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Genius, Mistakes
Positive anything is better than negative nothing.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Entrepreneurs, Attitude, Virtues, Optimism, Thinking
I believe in the hands that work, in the brains that think, and in the hearts that love…I believe in sunshine, fresh air, friendship, calm sleep, beautiful thoughts.
—Elbert Hubbard
Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them; power flows to the man who knows how.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Power
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Genius
The reason men oppose progress is not that they hate progress, but that they love inertia.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Progress
Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Science
If you err it is not for me to punish you. We are punished by our sins not for them.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Sin
It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires a great deal of strength to decide what to do.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Strength, Decisions
Folks who never do any more than they get paid for, never get paid for anymore than they do.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Work
Man is not what he thinks he is, but what he thinks, he is.
—Elbert Hubbard
He has achieved success who has worked well, laughed often, and loved much.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Success, Love, Success & Failure, Work, Accomplishment
Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way we spend our time.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Attitude, Character
The cheerful loser is the winner.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Winning, Losers, Losing, Winners, Loss
OPTIMISM: A kind of heart stimulant—the digitalis of failure.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Optimism
The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
—Elbert Hubbard
The weaknesses of the many make the leader possible.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Leadership
Never explain—your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyhow.
—Elbert Hubbard
The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Happiness
A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Memory
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