We work to become; not to acquire.
– Elbert Hubbard
Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not
exceeding the limit.
– Elbert Hubbard
The only foes that threaten America are the enemies at home, and these are ignorance,
superstition and incompetence.
– Elbert Hubbard
A man who marries a woman to educate her falls a victim to the same fallacy as the woman
who marries a man to reform him.
– Elbert Hubbard
A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.
– Elbert Hubbard
The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
– Elbert Hubbard
Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.
– Elbert Hubbard
God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.
– Elbert Hubbard
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.
– Elbert Hubbard
True life lies in laughter, love and work.
– Elbert Hubbard
He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.
– Elbert Hubbard
The only man who makes money following the horses is one who does it with a broom and a
shovel.
– Elbert Hubbard
The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher.
– Elbert Hubbard
If you want work well done, select a busy man; the other kind has no time.
– Elbert Hubbard
The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live.
– Elbert Hubbard
A great success is made up of an aggregation of little ones.
– Elbert Hubbard
One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one
extraordinary man.
– Elbert Hubbard
Art is not a thing – it is a way.
– Elbert Hubbard
It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires a great deal of strength to decide
what to do.
– Elbert Hubbard
Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.
– Elbert Hubbard
So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will
occasionally kill theirs.
– Elbert Hubbard
The man who is so run down that he needs a vacation can never adjust or reform himself in
two weeks. What he really needs is to re-transform his life.
– Elbert Hubbard
The supernatural is the natural not yet understood.
– Elbert Hubbard
It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires a great deal of strength to decide
what to do.
– Elbert Hubbard
Don’t make excuses – make good.
– Elbert Hubbard
Life in abundance comes only through great love.
– Elbert Hubbard
To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
– Elbert Hubbard
Thoroughness characterizes all successful men. Genius is the art of taking infinite pains. All
great achievement has been characterized by extreme care, infinite painstaking, even to the
minutest detail.
– Elbert Hubbard
He has achieved success who has worked well, laughed often, and loved much.
– Elbert Hubbard
There is no failure except in no longer trying.
– Elbert Hubbard
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 recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your
knowledge.
– Elbert Hubbard
A pessimist? That’s a person who has been intimately acquainted with an optimist.
– Elbert Hubbard
Where much is expected from an individual, he may rise to the level of events and make the
dream come true.
– Elbert Hubbard
Death: to stop sinning suddenly.
– Elbert Hubbard
Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed – there’s so little competition.
– Elbert Hubbard
The love we give away is the only love we keep.
– Elbert Hubbard
This will never be a civilized country until we expend more money for books than we do for
chewing gum.
– Elbert Hubbard
War is the sure result of the existence of armed men. That country which maintains a large
standing army will sooner or later have a war. The man who prides himself on fisticuffs is
going, some day, to meet a man who considers himself the better man, and they will test the
issue.
– Elbert Hubbard
The line between failure and success is so fine that we are often on the line and do not know
it.
– Elbert Hubbard
I do not read a book; I hold a conversation with the author.
– Elbert Hubbard
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?
– Elbert Hubbard
No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one.
– Elbert Hubbard
Character is the result of two things: Mental attitude and the way we spend our time.
– Elbert Hubbard
Experience is the name every one gives his mistakes.
– Elbert Hubbard
I would rather be able to appreciate things I cannot have than to have things I am not able
to appreciate.
– Elbert Hubbard
A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.
– Elbert Hubbard
Enjoy what you have, work for what you lack.
– Elbert Hubbard
It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you
cannot get.
– Elbert Hubbard
Nothing unmasks a man like his use of power.
– Elbert Hubbard
The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.
– Elbert Hubbard
To make mistakes is human, but to profit from them is divine.
– Elbert Hubbard
Everybody is interesting when he writes about himself, because he is discussing a subject in
which he is vitally interested – whether he understands the theme is another thing.
– Elbert Hubbard
If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.
– Elbert Hubbard
Blessed is that man who has found his work.
– Elbert Hubbard
If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate.
– Elbert Hubbard
Folks who never do any more than they are paid for, never get paid for any more than they
do.
– Elbert Hubbard
Positive anything is better than negative thinking.
– Elbert Hubbard
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.
– Elbert Hubbard
Life is just one damned thing after another.
– Elbert Hubbard
He who influences the thought of his times influences all the times that follow. He has made
his impress on eternity.
– Elbert Hubbard
Few people, comparatively, think for themselves.
– Elbert Hubbard
If you can not answer a man’s argument, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.
– Elbert Hubbard
A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in the experience.
– Elbert Hubbard
A man is not paid for having a head and hands, but for using them.
– Elbert Hubbard
Men are rich only as they give. He who gives great service gets great rewards.
– Elbert Hubbard
No one ever gets far unless he accomplishes the impossible at least once a day.
– Elbert Hubbard
A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.
– Elbert Hubbard
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy to be called an idea at all.
– Elbert Hubbard
Jealousy seems the absolute reversal of love. It is the swinging from the sunny warmth of the
Equator to the frigid cold of the North Pole.
– Elbert Hubbard
Complete success alienates a man from his fellows, but suffering makes kinsmen of us all.
– Elbert Hubbard
Theology is classified superstition.
– Elbert Hubbard
Happiness is a habit – cultivate it.
– Elbert Hubbard
Football: A sport that bears the same relation to education that bullfighting does to
agriculture.
– Elbert Hubbard
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
– Elbert Hubbard
The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.
– Elbert Hubbard
Everything comes too late for those who only wait.
– Elbert Hubbard
To subjugate another is to subjugate yourself.
– 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