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.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Elbert Hubbard
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.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Stress
When we really live truth, we will cease to talk about it.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Truth
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
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
College football is a sport that bears the same relation to education that bullfighting does to agriculture.
—Elbert Hubbard
Little minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds in the commonplace.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: The Mind
We find what we expect to find, and we receive what we ask for.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Expectation
All noise is waste. So cultivate quietness in your speech, in your thoughts, in your emotions. Speak habitually low. Wait for attention and then you low words will be charged with dynamite.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Communication, Silence
Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed—there’s so little competition.
—Elbert Hubbard
Play needs direction as well as work.
—Elbert Hubbard
The man who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Understanding, Silence
If we cannot be happy and powerful and prey on others, we invent conscience and prey on ourselves.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Self-Discovery
Positive anything is better than negative nothing.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Entrepreneurs, Attitude, Optimism, Thinking, Virtues
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
Man is not what he thinks he is, but what he thinks, he is.
—Elbert Hubbard
If you want work well done, select a busy man; the other kind has no time.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Time, Quality, Busy
When someone says it ain’t the money, but it’s the principal of the thing, it’s the money.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Money
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
A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in on the experience.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Failures, Mistakes, Failure
So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private citizens will occasionally kill theirs.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Enemy, Peace, Government, Example
Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Integrity, Character, Sin
Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them; power flows to the man who knows how.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Power
He who influences the thought of his times influences the times that follow.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Influence, Leadership
Life is a compromise between fate and free will.
—Elbert Hubbard
Do not take life too seriously—you will never get out of it alive.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Life and Living, Carpe-diem, Living Well
Grammar is the grave of letters.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Letters
The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Happiness
God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Success & Failure, Difficulties, Difficulty, Experience, Adversity, Achievement
Human service is the highest form of self-interest for the person who serves.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Service
An executive is a man who can make quick decisions and is sometimes right.
—Elbert Hubbard
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