Elbert Hubbard

“ What he was thinking of was a school where people—young and old—were taught to be self-respecting, self-reliant and efficient—to care for themselves, to help bear the burdens of the world, to assist themselves by adding to the happiness of others. ”

“ John Jacob Astor once told Washington Irving that it was only business responsibility that prevented his being a novelist; and at other times he declared his intent to take up music as a profession as soon as he had gotten all of his securities properly tied up. And whether he worked out his dreams or not, there is no doubt but that they added to his peace, happiness and length of days. Happy is the man who escapes the critics by leaving his literary masterpiece in the ink. ”

“ Honest fools are really no better than rogues, as far as practical purposes are concerned. Bowne once found a man who was honest and also knew furs, but alas! he had a passion for drink, and no prophet could foretell his "periodic," until after it occurred.
Young Astor had been with Bowne only a year. He spoke imperfect English, but he did not drink nor gamble, and he knew furs and was honest.
Bowne started him off for Canada with a belt full of gold; his only weapon was a German flute that he carried in his hand. Bowne being a Quaker did not believe in guns. ”

“ The hotel that runs full is a gold mine. Hungry men feed, and the beautiful part about the hotel business is that the customers are hungry the next day—also thirsty. Astor was worth ten million, but he took a personal delight in sitting in the lobby of the Astor House and watching the dollars roll into this palace that his brain had planned. ”

“ LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF GREAT BUSINESS MEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD JOHN J. ASTOR The man who makes it the habit of his life to go to bed at nine o'clock, usually gets rich and is always reliable. Of course, going to bed does not make him rich—I merely mean that such a man will in all probability be up early in the morning and do a big day's work, so his weary bones put him to bed early. ”

“ Astor hated gamblers. He never confused gambling, as a mode of money getting, with actual production. He knew that gambling produces nothing—it merely transfers wealth, changes ownership. And since it involves loss of time and energy it is a positive waste. ”

“ John Jacob Astor was born of a Dutch family that had migrated down to Heidelberg from Antwerp. Through some strange freak of atavism the father of the boy bred back, and was more or less of a stone-age cave-dweller. He was a butcher by trade, in the little town of Waldorf, a few miles from Heidelberg. A butcher's business then was to travel around and kill the pet pig, or sheep, or cow that the tender-hearted owners dare not harm. The butcher was a pariah, a sort of unofficial, industrial hangman. ”

“ When he got back to New York, he at once struck out through the wilderness to buy furs of the Indians, or better still, to interest them in bringing furs to him.
He knew the value of friendship in trade as no man of the time did.
He went clear through to Lake Erie, down to Niagara Falls, along Lake Ontario, across to Lake Champlain and then down the Hudson. He foresaw the great city of Buffalo, and Rochester as well, only he said that Rochester would probably be situated directly on the Lake. But the water-power of the Genesee Falls proved a stronger drawing power than the Lake Front. ”

“ He started for New York.
Here he found work with a certain Robert Bowne, a Quaker, who bought and sold furs.
Young Astor set himself to learn the business—every part of it. He was always sitting on the curb at the door before the owner got around in the morning, carrying a big key to open the warehouse. He was the last to leave at night. He pounded furs with a stick, salted them, sorted them, took them to the tanners, brought them home.
He worked, and as he worked, learned.
To secure the absolute confidence of a man, obey him. ”

“ The marriage brought young Astor into "the best Dutch New York society," a combination that was quite as exclusive then as now.
This marriage was a business partnership as well as marital and proved a success in every way. Sarah was a worker, with all the good old Dutch qualities of patience, persistence, industry and economy. When her husband went on trips she kept store. She was the only partner in which he ever had implicit faith. And faith is the first requisite in success. ”

“ At the same time he was more or less of a genius, for he climbed steeples, dug wells, and did all kinds of disagreeable jobs that needed to be done, and from which sober and cautious men shrank like unwashed wool. ”

“ On board ship he met a German, twenty years older than himself, who was a fur trader and had been home on a visit.
John Jacob played the flute and the German friend told stories of fur trading among the Indians.
Young Astor's curiosity was excited. The Waldorf-Astoria plan of flute-playing was forgotten. He fed on fur trading.
The habits of the animals, the value of their pelts, the curing of the furs, their final market, was all gone over again and again. The two extra months at sea gave him an insight into a great business and he had the time to fletcherize his ideas. ”

“ He also left fifty thousand dollars to his native town of Waldorf, a part of which money was used to found an Astor Library there God is surely good, for if millionaires were immortal, their money would cause them great misery and the swollen fortunes would crowd mankind, not only 'gainst the wall, but into the sea. Death is the deliverer, for Time checks power and equalizes all things, and gives the new generation a chance. ”

“ The qualities that make a youth a good servant are the basic ones for mastership. Astor's alertness, willingness, loyalty, and ability to obey, delivered his employer over into his hands.
Robert Bowne, the good old Quaker, insisted that Jacob should call him Robert; and from boarding the young man with a near-by war widow who took cheap boarders, Bowne took young Astor to his own house, and raised his pay from two dollars a week to six.
Bowne had made an annual trip to Montreal for many years.
Montreal was the metropolis for furs. ”

“ One of these boys came to America, and followed his father's trade of butcher.
Jacob Astor, the happy father of John Jacob, used to take the boy with him on his pig-killing expeditions. This for two reasons—one, so the lad would learn a trade, and the other to make sure that the boy did not run away.
Parents who hold their children by force have a very slender claim upon them. The pastor of the local Lutheran Church took pity on this boy, who had such disgust for his father's trade and hired him to work in his garden and run errands. ”

“ Men are rich only as they give. ”

“ Rogues do their work at night. Honest men work by day. It's all a matter of habit, and good habits in America make any man rich. Wealth is a result of habit.
—JOHN JACOB ASTOR LITTLE JOURNEYS Victor Hugo says, "When you open a school, you close a prison."
This seems to require a little explanation. Victor Hugo did not have in mind a theological school, nor yet a young ladies' seminary, nor an English boarding-school, nor a military academy, and least of all a parochial institute. ”

“ Roger Morris is known in history as the man who married Mary Philipse. And this lady lives in history because she had the felicity of having been proposed to by George Washington. It is George himself, tells of this in his Journal, and George you remember could not tell a lie. ”

“ The profit on this one voyage was seventy thousand dollars. By Eighteen Hundred and Ten, John Jacob Astor was worth two million dollars. He began to invest all his surplus money in New York real estate. He bought acreage property in the vicinity of Canal Street. Next he bought Richmond Hill, the estate of Aaron Burr. It consisted of one hundred and sixty acres just above Twenty-third Street. He paid for the land a thousand dollars an acre. People said Astor was crazy. In ten years he began to sell lots from the Richmond Hill property at the rate of five thousand dollars an acre. ”