Elbert Hubbard (1856 – 1915)
American writer, publisher, artist, businessman, anarchist and libertarian socialist philosopher.
Perfume; Any smell that is used to drown a worse one.
If you want work well done, select a busy man ‚ the other kind has no time.
I am not sure just what the unpardonable sin is, but I believe it is a disposition to evade the payment of small bills.
Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them.
The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.
Piety is the tinfoil of pretense.
Most Authors cringe and flatter and Fish for compliments. If they fail to get Applause, they say the World is a Scurvy Place and those who dwell therein a Dirty Lot: if they succeed, they give thanks to Nobody, saying they got only what their Meritt entitles them to. But I rather like the World. The Flesh is pleasing and the Devil does not trouble me.
Life is just one damn thing after another.
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.
It is not to be wondered that men have worshiped the ocean, for in his depths they have seen mirrored the image of Eternity — of Infinity. Here they have seen the symbol of God's great plan of oneness with His creatures, for the sea is the union of all infinite particles, and it takes the whole to make the one.
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.
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.
There is no such thing as success in a bad business.
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.
Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes a day. Wisdom consists of not exceeding the limit.
Respectability is the dickey on the bosom of civilization.
It is only life and love that give love and life.
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.
There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability. The sternest comment that can be made against employers as a class lies in the fact that men of Ability usually succeed in showing their worth in spite of their employer, and not with his assistance and encouragement.
When you see a tomcat with his whiskers full of feathers, do not say "Canary!" — he'll take offense.