Elbert Hubbard Quotations | Page 2

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

Most people like hard work, particularly when they're paying for it.

The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live.

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

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

True life lies in laughter, love and work.

Responsibility is the price of freedom.

The teacher is one who makes two ideas grow where only one grew before.

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.

Freedom cannot be bestowed - it must be achieved.

Victory; a matter of staying power.

The man who is anybody and who does anything is surely going to be criticized, vilified, and misunderstood. This is a part of the penalty for greatness, and every great man understands it; and understands, too, that it is no proof of greatness. The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure contumely without resentment.

Fences are made for those who cannot fly.

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

Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage but simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal.

The cure for grief is motion.

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

In these days, a man who says a thing cannot be done is quite apt to be interrupted by some idiot doing it.

Of all the mental and physical polluters of life, nothing exercises such a poisonous effect as fear.

If you work for a man, in heavens name work for him! If he pays you wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for him speak well of him, think well of him, stand by him and stand by the institution he represents. I think if I worked for a man I would work for him. I would not work for him a part of the time, and the rest of the time work against him. I would give an undivided service or none. If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.

Faith is the effort to believe what your common sense tells you is not true.

What others say of me matters little; what I myself say and do matters much.

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

Life is a compromise between fate and free will.

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.

Good health! Whenever you go out of doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of your head high, and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in sunshine; greet your friends with a smile, and put soul into every handclasp. Do not fear being misunderstood and never waste a minute thinking about your enemies.

I believe in courtesy, in kindness, in generosity, in good cheer, in friendship and in honest competition. I believe there is something doing somewhere, for every man ready to do it. I believe I'm ready, RIGHT NOW.

Piety is the tinfoil of pretense.

I do not read a book; I hold a conversation with the author.

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

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.

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.

The average woman sees only the weak points in a strong man, and the good points in a weak one.

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.

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

Orthodoxy: That peculiar condition where the patient can neither eliminate an old idea nor absorb a new one.

No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one.

Happiness is a habit—cultivate it.

Freedom is a condition of mind, and the best way to secure it is to breed it.

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

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.

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

Enthusiasm is the great hill-climber.

As we grow better, we meet better people.

He who influences the thought of his times influences the times that follow.

Cultivate only the habits that you are willing should master you

An enemy is anyone who tells the truth about you.

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.

Genius is the ability to act rightly without precedent - the power to do the right thing the first time.

When a man sends you an impudent letter, sit right down and give it back to him with interest ten times compounded, and then throw both letters in the wastebasket.

We find what we expect to find, and we receive what we ask for.

The worst thing about medicine is that one kind makes another necessary

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

Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts.

Life without absorbing occupation is hell; joy consists in forgetting life.

An ounce of performance is worth more than a pound of preachment.

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

Luck is tenacity of purpose.

Every man should have a college education in order to show him how little the thing is really worth.

Down in their hearts, wise men know this truth: the only way to help yourself is to help others.

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

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.

Progress comes from the intelligent use of experience.

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

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

Most diseases are the result of medication which has been prescribed to relieve and take away a beneficent and warning symptom on the part of Nature.

We work to become, not to acquire.

Natural joy brings no headaches and no heartaches.

Growth is often a painful process.

Success consists in the climb.

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

Live truth instead of professing it.

Lawyers are men whom we hire to protect us from lawyers.

Laughter is higher than all pain.

Constant effort and frequent mistakes are the stepping stones to genius.

Everything comes too late for those who only wait.

There is no failure except the failure of trying.

Get happiness out of your work or you may never know what happiness is.

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

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

Be yourself and think for yourself, and while your conclusions may not be infallible they will be nearer right than the inclusions forced upon you by those who have a personal interest in keeping you in ignorance.

Wealth is an engine that can be used for power, if you are an engineer; but to be tied to the fly wheel of an engine is rather a misfortune.

Wisdom must go with Sympathy, else the emotions will become maudlin and pity may be wasted on a poodle instead of a child-on a field-mouse instead of a human soul.

Postponement: The father of failure.

Man is not what he thinks he is, but what he thinks, he is.

I believe the Universe is planned for good.

Play needs direction as well as work.

Who are the happiest people on earth? A craftsman or artist whistling over a job well done. A little child building sand castles. A mother, after a busy day, bathing her baby. A doctor who has finished a difficult and dangerous operation, and saved a human life. Happiness lies in a constructive job well done. Get your happiness out of your work or you will never know what happiness is.

Theology is an attempt to explain a subject by men who do not understand it. The intent is not to tell the truth but to satisfy the questioner.

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

A person born with an instinct for poverty.

One can play comedy, two are required for melodrama, but a tragedy demands three.

Tragedy and comedy are simply questions of value; a little misfit in life makes us laugh; a great one is tragedy and cause for expression of grief.

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.

Two-thirds of all preachers, doctors and lawyers are hanging on to the coat tails of progress, shouting, whoa! while a good many of the rest are busy strewing banana peels along the line of march.

Meanness is more in half-doing than in omitting acts of generosity.

One thing is sure, there are just two respectable ways to die. One is of old age, and the other is by accident.

A book on cheap paper does not convince. It is not prized, it is like a wheezy doctor with pigtail tobacco breath, who needs a manicure.

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

You had better be a round peg in a square hole than a square peg in a square hole. The latter is in for life, while the first is only an indeterminate sentence.