Elbert Hubbard Quotes

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

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

“If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble.”

“The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it: so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it.”

“Growth is often a painful process.”

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

“The finest friendships are between those who can do without each other.”

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

“The man who knows it can't be done counts the risk, not the reward.”

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

“The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.”

“Knowledge is the distilled essence of our institutions, corroborated by experience.”

“Those who create beauty are also they who possess it.”

“Don't make excuses, make good.”

“Gossip is only the lack of a worthy memory.”

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

“Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts.”

“Everything comes too late for those who only wait.”

“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.”

“Play needs direction as well as work.”

“The only way to retain love is to give it away.”

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

“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.”

“If I supply you with a thought, you may remember it and you may not. But if I can make you think a thought for yourself, I have indeed added to your stature.”

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