"Good people are only half as good, and bad people only half as bad, as other people regard them."

Elbert Hubbard Philosophy See all quotes by Elbert Hubbard →

React to this quote

More by Elbert Hubbard

“Some one has said that we are moving so fast that when plans are being made to perform some great feat, these plans are broken into by a youth who enters and says, "I have done it."”

“If you want work well done, select a busy man ‚ the other kind has no time.”

“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.”

“A Miracle: An event described by those to whom it was told by men who did not see it.”

“Life without absorbing occupation is hell — joy consists in forgetting life.”

“Woman's inaptitude for reasoning has not prevented her from arriving at truth; nor has man's ability to reason prevented him from floundering in absurdity.”

Resonant Thoughts

"I had said, Mr. Yahya Khan, you are the President of this country. Come to Dhaka, come and see how our poor Bengali people have been mown down by your bullets, how the laps of our mothers and sisters …"

— Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

Politics1920–1975

#Human Nature

"Early to Bed and Early to Rise is a Bad Rule for any one who wishes to become acquainted with our most Prominent and Influential People."

— George Ade

Literature1866–1944

#Human Nature

"Humanity many times has had sad experience of superpowerful police forces...As soon as slip out from under the firm thumb of a suspicious local tribune, they become arbitrary, merciless, a law unto th…"

— Jack Vance

Literature1916–2013

#justice

"Even in love, people betray themselves. And when you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself. I would say a great part of human history is a history of self-betrayal and betrayal of others."

— Isaac Bashevis Singer

Literature1904–1991

#Human Nature