Elbert Hubbard Quotes

Truths turn into dogmas the moment they are disputed.

Every dogma has its day.

Throughout my years in business, I discovered something. I would always ask why you do things. The answers that I would invariably get are: 'Oh, that's just the way things are done around here.' Nobody knows why they do what they do. Nobody thinks very deeply about things in business.

Sacred cows make very poor gladiators.

Success makes men rigid and they tend to exalt stability over all the other virtues; tired of the effort of willing they become fanatics about conservatism.

You see, I am a very conventional scientist, really.

People that are orthodox when they are young are in danger of being middle-aged all their lives.

For me, habit is just a synonym for death.

We too often bind ourselves by authorities rather than by the truth.

As long as you don't make waves, ripples, life seems easy. But that's condemning yourself to impotence and death before you are dead.

Do not bury our glorious orthodoxy in the treacherous pit of a spurious conservatism.

Any stigma will do to beat a dogma.

Once is orthodox, twice is puritanical.

Normality is death.

It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead.

Within orthodoxy, there is always a danger of faith collapsing into fear.

Orthodoxy: That peculiar condition where the patient can neither eliminate an old idea nor absorb a new one.

Anyone who limits his vision to his memories of yesterday is already dead.

Success makes men rigid and they tend to exalt stability over all other virtues.

Nobody wants to change.

I feel uneasy at the very idea of a Movement. I see every insight degenerating into a dogma, and fresh thoughts freezing into lifeless party line.

There’s too much orthodoxy in the political process today.

Concert pianists are really afraid to try out the Beethoven Fourth Concerto if the Third happens to be their specialty. That's the piece they had such success with on Long Island, by George, and it will surely bring them success in Connecticut. So first there's tremendous conservatism. And then stagnation sets in. Or it certainly did in me.

People tend not to want to question dogma. But I'm afraid of dogma.

Man's best friend is his dogma.