Elbert Green Hubbard Quotes

A PRAYER The supreme prayer of my heart is not to be learned, rich, famous, powerful, or “good,” but simply to be radiant. I desire to radiate health, cheerfulness, calm courage and good will. I wish to live without hate, whim, jealousy, envy, fear. I wish to be simple, honest, frank, natural, clean in mind and clean in body, unaffected — ready to say “I do not know,” if it be so, and to meet all men on an absolute equality — to face any obstacle and meet every difficulty unabashed and unafraid. I wish others to live their lives, too — up to their highest, fullest and best. To that end I pray that I may never meddle, interfere, dictate, give advice that is not wanted, or assist when my services are not needed. If I can help people, I’ll do it by giving them a chance to help themselves; and if I can uplift or inspire, let it be by example, inference, and suggestion, rather than by injunction and dictation.

Character is the result of two things, mental attitude, and the way we spend our time. It is what we think and what we do that make us what we are.

We are gods in the chrysalis.

Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things.

Heaven: the Coney Island of the Christian imagination.

Positive anything is better than negative nothing.

Live truth instead of professing it.

Young women with ambitions should be very crafty and cautious, lest mayhap they be caught in the soft, silken mesh of a happy marriage, and go down to oblivion, dead to the world.

The graveyards are full of people the world could not do without.

Business, to be successful, must be based on science, for demand and supply are matters of mathematics, not guesswork.

Poise is the strength of body and strength of mind to control your Sympathy and your Knowledge. Unless you control your emotions they run over and you stand in the mire.

The man who is anybody and who does anything is certainly going to be criticized, vilified and misunderstood. This is a part of the penalty for greatness, and every great man understands it; and understands, too, that it is no proof of greatness.

In these days, a man who says a thing cannot be done, quite apt to be interrupted by some idiot doing it.

Do not dump your woes upon people — keep the sad story of your life to yourself. Troubles grow by recounting them.

The mintage of wisdom is to know that rest is rust, and that real life is to love, laugh, and work.