Elbert Hubbard

“ When government gives to the arts of peace the same thought and attention that it gives to the arts of war, we will have peace on earth and good-will among men. But so long as the soldier takes precedence of the businessman in the political courts of the world, famine, death, disease and want will crouch at our doors. Commerce is production, war is destruction. The laws of production and distribution must and will be made a science; and then and not until then will happiness come to mankind and this earth serve as a pattern for the paradise of another life, instead of being a pandemonium. ”

“ With equal logic we might brand the Christian religion as a failure because its founder was not a personal success, either in his social status or as a political leader.
Gradually the thinking men of the world, the statesmen and the doers, are beholding the fact that mankind is an organism, and that a country is only as rich as its poorest citizen; that an athlete with Bright's disease is not worth as much to humanity as a small, lively and healthy boy of ten with cheek of tan and freckles to spare. Health comes from right living, and living without useful effort is only existence. ”

“ Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not free the colored race, because it is the law of God that he who would be free must free himself. A servile people are slaves by habit, and habit is the only fetter. Freedom, like happiness, is a condition of mind. A whining, complaining, pinching, pilfering class that listens for the whistle, watches the clock, that works only when under the menacing eye of the boss, and stands in eternal fear of the blue envelope here, and perdition hereafter, can never be made free by legislative enactment. ”

“ Man has today freedom to breathe, freedom to study, freedom to grow, such as he never before had since time began. Man has today more faith than he ever had before—more faith in himself, more faith in his fellows. Thinking, like the physical act of walking, is a matter of faith. For the privilege of being here today, in this place, expressing what we think, we are under special obligations to one man, and the entire world of progress is under obligation to this man—and that man is Garibaldi. ”

“ Jean Jacques Rousseau was a great man. We are still reading him—still talking about him—still trying to clap label upon him—still hunting for a pigeonhole in which to place him.
If a man were wholly crude, rude, ignorant and coarse, and if he did nothing but shock and irritate us, we would quickly cast him aside. But in addition to shocking us the great man fascinates us by his insight, his subtlety, his imagination, his sympathy, his tenderness, his love. Behind the act he sees the cause, and so he excuses and forgives. ”

“ Here is a little tribute from Paine's pen to America which some of our boomers of boom towns might do well to use:
America has now outgrown the state of infancy. Her strength and commerce make large advances to manhood; and science in all its branches has not only blossomed, but even ripened upon the soil. The cottages as it were of yesterday have grown into villages, and the villages to cities; and while proud antiquity, like a skeleton in rags, parades the streets of other nations, their genius, as if sickened and disgusted with the phantom, comes hither for recovery. ”

“ He knew that save in freedom alone does the intellect flower and blossom; that joy is the legal tender of the soul; that only through liberty can men progress and grow; and that great and beautiful work can be done only by a free and happy people.
The torch that fired his intellect was Mazzini, who was publishing a little periodical of protest that voiced what its editor felt, who wrote right out of his heart, and whose cry was, "Freedom and United Italy—an Italy free from the rule of the Pope." ”

“ War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen and unsupposed circumstances, such a combination of foreign matters, that no human wisdom can calculate the end. It has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes. I defend the cause of the poor, of the manufacturer, of the tradesman, of the farmer, and of all those on whom the real burden of taxes fall—but above all, I defend the cause of women and children—of all humanity.
Edmund Burke, hearing of Paine's presence in England, sent for him to come to his house. ”

“ Wesley saw with a clear and steady vision that the paid preacher, the priest with the "living" was an anomaly. To make a business of religion was to miss its essence, just as to make a business of love evolves a degenerate. Our religion should be a part of our daily lives. The circuit-rider was an apostle: he had no home, drew no salary, owned no property; but gave his life without stint to the cause of humanity. It was Wesley's habit to enter a house—any house— and say, "Peace be unto this house." ”

“ The genius of Paine was a flower that blossomed slowly. But life is a sequence, and the man who does great work has been in training for it. There is nothing like keeping in condition—one does not know when he is going to be called on. Prepared people do not have to hunt for a position—the position hunts for them. Paine knew no more about what he was getting ready for than did Benjamin Franklin, when at twenty he studied French, evenings, and dived deep into history. ”

“ Christianity is one thing; the religion of the Christ is another. Christianity is a river into which has flowed thousands upon thousands of streams, springs, brooks and rills, as well as the sewage of the cities. In the main it traces to pagan Rome, united with the cool, rapid-running Rhone of classic Greece. But the waters of placidly flowing Judaism, paralleling it, have always seeped through, and the fact that more than half of all Christianity prays to a Jewess, and that both Jesus and Paul were Jews, should not be forgotten. ”

“ To make war on others is to make war on yourself. Do as you would be done by.
Fox had no intention of founding an organization, nor was he in competition with any other religion. Such a movement, of course, depends entirely upon the quality of the man who advocates it. George Fox had personality—character—and so people flocked to hear him speak. His plea was so earnest, so direct, so vivid, so irrefutable, that as the listeners listened, some trembled with emotion. "Quakers," a scoffer called them, and this word, flung by an unknown hoodlum, stuck like a mud-ball. ”

“ Richard Cobden lived to strike the boarding-school fallacy many a jolting blow; but it required Charles Dickens to complete the work by ridicule, just as Robert Ingersoll laughed the Devil out of church. We fight for everything until the world regards it as ridiculous, then we abandon it. So long as war is regarded as heroic, we will fight for it; when it becomes absurd it will die.
Said Richard Cobden in a speech in the House of Commons: "Of all the pathetic fallacies perpetuated, none seems to me more cruelly absurd than the English Boarding-School for boys. ”

“ My friends, the time is coming when a State Church will be unknown in England, and it rests with you to accelerate or retard that happy consummation. I call upon you to gird yourselves for the contest which is impending, for the hour of conflict is approaching when the people of England will be arbiters of their own fate—when they will have to choose between civil and religious liberty, or the iron hoof, the mental thralldom of a hireling State priesthood. ”

“ Have we a burning zeal to save souls from death? Are we dead to the world and the things of the world? When we are smitten on one cheek, do we not resent it, or do we turn the other also, not resisting evil, but overcoming evil with good? Have we a bitter zeal, inciting us to strive sharply and passionately with those that are out of the way? Or is our zeal the flame of love, so as to direct all our words with sweetness, lowliness and meekness of wisdom?
"Once more: what shall we say of the youth of this place? Have you either the form or the power of Christian godliness? ”

“ Nine years after the death of Paine, William Cobbett, the eminent English reformer, stung by the obloquy visited upon the memory of Paine in America, had the grave opened and the bones of the man who wrote the first draft of our Declaration of Independence were removed to England, and buried near the spot where he was born. Death having silenced both the tongue and the pen of the Thetford weaver, no violent interference was offered by the British Government. So now the dead man slept where the presence of the living one was barred and forbidden. ”

“ He became a monk, and evolved into a preacher of worth and power.
A prosperous and successful church always produces a class of dignitaries given over to sloth and sensuality. From a sublime idea, with a desire to benefit and to bless, the church degenerates into an institution for the distribution of honors, and an engine for punishment for all who oppose it. To Martin Luther religion was a matter of the heart, and his soul was filled with the thought of service. ”

“ That bold and magnificent equestrian statue of Garibaldi crowns the heights of Rome, looking down upon the Eternal City; the dust of Mazzini rests in a village churchyard; but both live in the hearts of humanity as men who gave their lives to make men free.
* * * * *
Garibaldi was born in the city of Nice in Eighteen Hundred Seven, being one of the advance-guard of a brigade of genius, for great men come in groups. His parents were poor, and being well under the heel of the priest, were only fairly honest. ”

“ The Society of Friends—I like the phrase, don't you? The thought of having friends, and of being a friend, comes to us like a benison and a benediction. Friendship is almost a religion: the recognition in your life of the fact that to have friends you must be one is religion.
The Quakers did not educate men to preach: they simply educated them to be Friends—and live. ”

“ And it was a fact that this society, founded by Joseph and Martha Bright, that met weekly for more than thirty years, was almost a university, and served to set Rochdale apart as a city set upon a hill. This society discussed every topic of human interest, save politics and religion, boxing the compass of human knowledge. The wisdom, excellence, worth and benefit of such a society in a town is of an importance absolutely beyond compute. ”

“ Henry George died in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-seven. Nearly twenty years have passed since men heard his voice, looked on his strong, lithe, active form, saw the gleam of his honest eyes, and felt the presence of a man—a man who wanted nothing and gave everything—a man who gave himself. Twenty years!
And in those years the world has experienced, and is now passing through, a peaceful revolution such as men have never before seen. Those years have given us a new science of religion ”

“ Most of the Dissenters were Puritans, and they belonged to various denominations; and many, like Oliver Cromwell, belonged to none. The issue was freedom of conscience. Cromwell regarded religion as life and life as religion, and to him and to all men he believed that God spoke directly, if we would but listen.
If the Church won, many felt that freedom would flee, and England would be as it was in the reign of Bloody Mary.
If the Puritans won, no one knew the result—would power be safe in their hands? Men at the last were but men. In the hands of royalty, money flowed free. ”

“ And this led to that shibboleth of the Revolution, "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality." Only when it was written by Jean Jacques twenty years before it ran thus, "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality—or Death." The final word was too strong for even his fiery followers to digest. But once understood it means that if either prince or pauper refuses to sign the Social Contract and live for all, death then must be his portion. For and in consideration of this interest in the peace and welfare of all, the prince is given honors and is allowed to call himself "a ruler." ”

“ Anne Hutchinson was the mother of New England Transcendentalism. Self-consciousness is fatal to the art of expression; he who fixes his thought on the movements of his hands and feet is sure to get tangled up in them; good digestion does not require the attention of the party most interested; and he who devotes all of the time to his spiritual estate will soon have the whole property in chancery. Man is not a finality— he is not the thing—the play's the thing: life is the play and the play is life. Man is only one of the properties. ”