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
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
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.
—Elbert Hubbard
A friend is a person who knows all about you-and still likes you.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Friendship
Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding that limit.
—Elbert Hubbard
If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate.
—Elbert Hubbard
Constant effort and frequent mistakes are the stepping stones of genius.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Mistakes, Genius
The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Work, Planning, Preparation, The Present
We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Attitude, Optimism, Positive Attitudes, Health, War
Do not take life too seriously—you will never get out of it alive.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Life and Living, Carpe-diem
The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Happiness
A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Memory
The weaknesses of the many make the leader possible.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Leadership
Cultivate only the habits that you are willing should master you.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Habit
Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed—there’s so little competition.
—Elbert Hubbard
Your friend is who man who knows all about you, and still likes you.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Friends and Friendship, Friendship
The ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Discipline
If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of troubles.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Anxiety, Worry, Expectation
The average man plays to the gallery of his own self-esteem.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Self-Discovery
He picked up the lemons that Fate had sent him and started a lemonade-stand.
—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
Expert: One who limits himself to his chosen mode of ignorance.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Experts
What others say of me matters little, what I myself say and do matters much.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Character
The church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture.
—Elbert Hubbard
Money never made a fool of anybody; it only shows them up.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Money
Never explain—your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyhow.
—Elbert Hubbard
We find what we expect to find, and we receive what we ask for.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Expectation
The secret of success is this: there is no secret of success.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Success & Failure
Life is a compromise between fate and free will.
—Elbert Hubbard
The cheerful loser is the winner.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Winners, Winning, Losers, Loss, Losing
If you err it is not for me to punish you. We are punished by our sins not for them.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Sin
Where parents do too much for their children, the children will not do much for themselves.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Parents
HISTORY: gossip well told.
—Elbert Hubbard
Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Integrity, Sin, Character
Man is not what he thinks he is, but what he thinks, he is.
—Elbert Hubbard
The path of least resistance is what makes rivers run crooked.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Change
A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in on the experience.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Mistakes, Failures, Failure
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
Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them; power flows to the man who knows how.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Power
There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Ability, Motivation
He who influences the thought of his times influences the times that follow.
—Elbert Hubbard
Topics: Leadership
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