Elbert Hubbard Quotes

Dreams can come true, but there is a secret. They're realized through the magic of persistence, determination, commitment, passion, practice, focus and hard work. They happen a step at a time, manifested over years, not weeks.

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.

If you work for a man, in heaven's name work for him, speak well of him, and stand by the institution he represents. Remember, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. If you must growl, condemn, and eternally find fault - resign your position, and when you are outside, damn to your heart's content - but as long as you are part of the institution, do not condemn it. If you do, the first high wind that comes along will blow you away, and probably you will never know why.

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

The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you'll make one.

Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away.

Never explain - your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.

Positive anything is better than negative nothing.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

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.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

Where parents do too much for their children, the children will not do much for themselves.

Responsibility is the price of freedom.

Life is just one damned thing after another.

The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed - it is a process of elimination.

The love we give away is the only love we keep.

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.

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.

A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.

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.

Heaven: The Coney Island of the Christian imagination.

Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

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.

As a career, the business of an orthodox preacher is about as successful as that of a celluloid dog chasing an asbestos cat through hell.

Never get married in college; it's hard to get a start if a prospective employer finds you've already made one mistake.

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.

Christianity supplies a Hell for the people who disagree with you and a Heaven for your friends.

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.

The cheerful loser is the winner.

Be pleasant until ten o'clock in the morning and the rest of the day will take care of itself.

The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.

I believe the only way we can reach the Kingdom of Heaven is to have the Kingdom of Heaven in our hearts.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.

Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.

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.

Happiness is a habit—cultivate it.

We work to become, not to acquire.

God will not look you over for medals degrees or diplomas, but for scars.

Football: A sport that bears the same relation to education that bullfighting does to agriculture.

If it was woman who put man out of Paradise, it is still woman, and woman only, who can lead him back.

When you grow suspicious of a person and begin a system of espionage upon him, your punishment will be that you will find your suspicions true.

Men are only as great as they are kind.

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.

Secrets are things we give to others to keep for us.

We are punished by our sins, not for them.

A man is not paid for having a head and hands, but for using them.

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