Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Elbert Hubbard Philosopher

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United States
  • Born: Jun 19, 1856
  • Died: May 7, 1915

Elbert Green Hubbard was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Raised in Hudson, Illinois, he met early success as a traveling salesman with the Larkin Soap Company. Today Hubbard is mostly known as the founder of the Roycroft artisan community in East Aurora, New York, an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Among his many publications were the nine-volume work Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great and the short story A Message to Garcia. He and his second wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, died aboard the RMS Lusitania, which was sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915.

Optimism is a kind of heart stimulant - the digitalis of failure.

God will not look you over for medals degrees or diplomas, but for scars.

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.

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

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

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

The love we give away is the only love we keep.

The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.

The thing we fear we bring to pass.

Fear clogs faith liberates.

Fear is the thought of admitted inferiority.

The church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture.

Responsibility is the price of freedom.

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

Life in abundance comes only through great love.

The reason men oppose progress is not that they hate progress, but that they love inertia.

Art is not a thing it is a way.

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

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.

The only foes that threaten America are the enemies at home, and these are ignorance, superstition and incompetence.

A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.

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

We work to become, not to acquire.

Life is just one damned thing after another.

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

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

Often we can help each other most by leaving each other alone at other times we need the hand-grasp and the word of cheer.

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

Positive anything is better than negative nothing.

There is no failure except in no longer trying.

The highest reward that God gives us for good work is the ability to do better work.

Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away.

Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed - there's so little competition.

The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without his teacher.

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

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

Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom for himself.

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

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.

Live truth instead of professing it.

Love, we say, is life but love without hope and faith is agonizing death.

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.

Friendship, like credit, is highest when it is not used.

Die, v.: To stop sinning suddenly.

If you suffer, thank God! It is a sure sign that you are alive.

He has achieved success who has worked well, laughed often, and loved much.

Men are only as great as they are kind.

Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way we spend our time.

Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things.

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

The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you'll make one.

It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide on what to do.

Never get married in college it's hard to get a start if a prospective employer finds you've already made one mistake.

We are punished by our sins, not for them.

Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.

Pray that success will not come any faster than you are able to endure it.

A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in the experience.