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Elbert (Green) Hubbard
(19 Jun 1856 - 7 May 1915)
American writer and philosopher whose career began as a freelance newspaper writer in Chicago (1872-76). By the early 1890s he had written three novels. In 1895 he founded his Roycroft Shop in East Aurora, New York, where he revived old handicrafts, especially artistic printing and produced The Philistine, a monthly magazine. He had 500 various workers there by 1910, including metalsmiths, leathersmiths, bookbinders, and funiture craftmen. Collectors still value Roycraft furniture.
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Science Quotes by Elbert (Green) Hubbard (40 quotes)
A person with strength of character is one who has strong feelings, and strong command over them.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Jan 1905), 20, No. 2, 60.
A pessimist: an optimist out of a job.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Dec 1904), 20, No. 1, 10.
All the world’s a stage, but the parts are often badly cast.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Jan 1905), 20, No. 2, 33.
Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Selected writings of Elbert Hubbard (1928), 101.
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.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), 110. Celluloid, an early plastic, known by that name since 1872 and used for early film stock, is noted for its flammability.

Business, to be successful, must be based on science, for demand and supply are matters of mathematics, not guesswork.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
The Book of Business (1913), 56.
Discontent is inertia on a strike.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (May 1905), 20, No. 6, 183.
Dogmatism has only one eye, but bigotry is stone blind.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Mar 1905), 20, No. 4, 128.
Envy is an eyesore engendered by looking at another’s success thru the spectacles of our own inferiority.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Apr 1905), 20, No. 5, 160.
Every man has his little weakness. It often takes the form of a desire to get something for nothing.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Apr 1905), 20, No. 5, 160.
For the average mind precedent sanctifies.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Apr 1905), 20, No. 5, 160.
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Philistine: A Periodical of Protest (Sep 1906), 23, No. 4, 97.
Good luck is science not yet classified; just as the supernatural is the natural not yet understood.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
In Elbert Hubbard (ed. and publ.), The Philistine (Dec 1907), 26, No. 1, 10.
He who criticises, be he ever so honest, must suggest a practical remedy or he soon descends from the height of a critic to the level of a common scold.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Jan 1905), 20, No. 2, 33.
I do not believe that God ever created a man and then got so “put out” over the job that He damned him.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Apr 1905), 20, No. 5, 160.
I would rather have a big burden and a strong back, than a weak back and a caddy to carry life’s luggage.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Dec 1904), 20, No. 1, 26.
If [a man] is sent to a hospital, he is supplied with a topic of conversation, and often is boastful.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
In 'Nature's Supreme Desire', Cosmopolitan Magazine (Oct 1912), 53, No. 5, 579.
In the Life of Darwin by his son, there is related an incident of how the great naturalist once studied long as to just what a certain spore was. Finally he said, “It is this, for if it isn’t, then what is it?” And all during his life he was never able to forget that he had been guilty of this unscientific attitude, for science is founded on certitude, not assumption.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
In Elbert Hubbard (ed. and publ.), The Philistine (May 1908), 26, No. 6, 172.
It is always the nearest, plainest and simplest principles that learned men comprehend last.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
In Elbert Hubbard (ed. and publ.), The Philistine (Mar 1908), 26, No. 4, cover.
It is the patient workers, and the active, kindly sympathetic men and women who hold the balance of things secure.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Apr 1905), 20, No. 5, 160.
Let it be understood that the University is a preparatory school: it is life that gives you the “finals”—not college.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Dec 1904), 20, No. 1, 30.
Life is death on a vacation.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Mar 1905), 20, No. 4, 158.
Nature is the great ocean of intelligence in which we are bathed.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
In 'Nature's Supreme Desire', Cosmopolitan Magazine (Oct 1912), 53, No. 5, 579.
No one ever enjoys any more freedom than he has strength to take and use.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Apr 1905), 20, No. 5, 160.
One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
In A Thousand and One Epigrams (1911), 151.
Professor Tyndall once said the finest inspiration he ever received was from an old man who could scarcely read. This man acted as his servant. Each morning the old man would knock on the door of the scientist and call, “Arise, Sir: it is near seven o'clock and you have great work to do today.”
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), 72.
Science is simply the classification of the common knowledge of the common people. It is bringing together the things we all know and putting them together so we can use them. This is creation and finds its analogy in Nature, where the elements are combined in certain ways to give us fruits or flowers or grain.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
In Elbert Hubbard (ed. and publ.), The Philistine (Dec 1907), 26, 10.
Success is voltage under control—keeping one hand on the transformer of your Kosmic Kilowatts.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
In Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers (1909), 68.
The best men are always first discovered by their enemies: it is the adversary who turns on the searchlight, and the proof of excellence lies in being able to stand the gleam.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Dec 1904), 20, No. 1, 18.
The Church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Elbert Hubbard and H. P. Taber, Philistine: A Periodical of Protest (Nov 1908), 27, No. 6, 184.
The expression Similia similibus is a Latin phrase and means that an imaginary disease can best be cured by an imaginary remedy.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
In Elbert Hubbard (ed. and publ.), The Philistine (Mar 1908), 26, No. 4, 105. The reference is to the phrase “similia similibus curantur” (similar things take care of similar things; or, like cures like).
The men you see waiting in the lobbies of doctors’ offices are, in a vast majority of cases, suffering through poisoning caused by an excess of food.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
In Love, Life and Work (), 129.
The nation that prepares for war will sooner or later have war. We get just anything we prepare for, and we get nothing else. Everything that happens is a sequence: this happened today because you did that yesterday.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Apr 1905), 20, No. 5, 160.
The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without his teacher.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Used as epigraph on cover of Harry Persons Taber and Elbert Hubbard, The Philistine: A Periodical of Protest (Apr 1902), Vol. 14, 128.
The path of civilization is paved with tin cans.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Aphorism in The Philistine (Apr 1905), 20, No. 5, 160.
The probable fact is that we are descended not only from monkeys but from monks.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Used as epigraph on cover of Harry Persons Taber and Elbert Hubbard, The Philistine: A Periodical of Protest (Aug 1909), Vol. 14, 128.
The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
Philistine: A Periodical of Protest (Sep 1902), 15, No. 4, 92.
The worst thing about medicine is that one kind makes another necessary.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
…...
Two-thirds of all preachers, doctors and lawyers are hanging on to the coat tails of progress, shouting, whoa! while a good many of the rest are busy strewing banana peels along the line of march.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
In Elbert Hubbard (ed. and publ.), The Philistine (May 1908), 26, No. 6, 151.
Vivisection is blood-lust, screened behind the sacred name of science.
— Elbert (Green) Hubbard
In Elbert Hubbard (ed. and publ.), The Philistine (1907), 26, 187.