Elbert Hubbard

"If your religion does not change you, then you had better change your religion."

"Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes a day. Wisdom consists of not exceeding the limit."

"If you err it is not for me to punish you. We are punished by our sins not for them."

"It is only life and love that give love and life."

"Young women with ambitions should be very crafty and cautious, lest mayhap they be caught in the soft, silken mesh of a happy marriage, and go down to oblivion, dead to the world."

"I have no perfect panacea for human ills. And even if I had I would not attempt to present a system of philosophy between the soup and fish, but this much I will say: The distinctively modern custom of marital bundling is the doom of chivalry and death of passion. It wears all tender sentiment to a napless warp, and no wonder is it that the novelist, without he has a seared and bitter heart, hesitates to follow the couple beyond the church door. There is no greater reproach to our civilization than the sight of men joking the boy whose heart is pierced by the first rays of a life-giving sun, or of our expecting a girl to blush because she is twice God's child today she was yesterday."

"The great Big Black Things that have loomed against the horizon of my life, threatening to devour me, simply loomed and nothing more. The things that have really made me miss my train have always been sweet, soft, pretty, pleasant things of which I was not in the least afraid."

"To supply a thought is mental massage; but to evolve a thought of your own is an achievement. Thinking is a brain exercise — and no faculty grows save as it is exercised."

"Do not go out of your way to do good whenever it comes your way. Men who make a business of doing good to others are apt to hate others in the same occupation. 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."

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

"The newspapers print what the people want, and thus does the savage still swing his club and flourish his spear."

"I am not sure just what the unpardonable sin is, but I believe it is a disposition to evade the payment of small bills."

"Do not dump your woes upon people — keep the sad story of your life to yourself. Troubles grow by recounting them."

"Men who marry for gratification, propagation or the matter of buttons or socks, must expect to cope with and deal in a certain amount of quibble, subterfuge, concealments, and double, deep-dyed prevarication."

"When you see a tomcat with his whiskers full of feathers, do not say "Canary!" — he'll take offense."

"Academic education is the act of memorizing things read in books, and things told by college professors who got their education mostly by memorizing things read in books."

"Literature is the noblest of all the arts. Music dies on the air, or at best exists only as a memory; oratory ceases with the effort; the painter's colors fade and the canvas rots; the marble is dragged from its pedestal and is broken into fragments."

"The weaknesses of the many make the leader possible—and 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. Discipleship is a degenerating process to all parties concerned. People who are able to do their own thinking should not allow others to do it for them."

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

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

"Making men live in three worlds at once — past, present and future has been the chief harm organized religion has done."

"Our admiration is so given to dead martyrs that we have little time for living heroes."

"Perfume; Any smell that is used to drown a worse one."

"Respectability is the dickey on the bosom of civilization."

"There is no such thing as success in a bad business."

"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."

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

"The way to learn to earn a living is to go at it and earn a living."

"To remain on earth you must be useful, otherwise Nature regards you as old metal, and is only watching for a chance to melt you over."

"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."

"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 friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you."

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

"I can not say specifically where your father and Mrs. Hubbard were when the torpedoes hit, but I can tell you just what happened after that. They emerged from their room, which was on the port side of the vessel, and came on to the boat-deck. Neither appeared perturbed in the least. Your father and Mrs. Hubbard linked arms — the fashion in which they always walked the deck — and stood apparently wondering what to do. I passed him with a baby which I was taking to a lifeboat when he said, "Well, Jack, they have got us. They are a damn sight worse than I ever thought they were." They did not move very far away from where they originally stood. As I moved to the other side of the ship, in preparation for a jump when the right moment came, I called to him, "What are you going to do?" and he just shook his head, while Mrs. Hubbard smiled and said, "There does not seem to be anything to do." The expression seemed to produce action on the part of your father, for then he did one of the most dramatic things I ever saw done. He simply turned with Mrs. Hubbard and entered a room on the top deck, the door of which was open, and closed it behind him. It was apparent that his idea was that they should die together, and not risk being parted on going into the water."

"I think of what Elbert Hubbard said. It struck me rather strangely the other day. He said: "If you are going to reform the world you had better begin with yourself, and there will be one rogue less in the world." Of course, I did not want to apply that to myself, but I would not object to applying it to you."