Love, Life Work

Love, Life & Work

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Love, Life & Work, by Elbert
Hubbard This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
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Title: Love, Life & Work Being a Book of Opinions Reasonably
Good-Natured Concerning How to Attain the Highest Happiness for
One's Self with the Least Possible Harm to Others
Author: Elbert Hubbard
Release Date: December 8, 2003 [EBook #10417]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LIFE & WORK ***

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LOVE LIFE & WORK
BEING A BOOK OF OPINIONS REASONABLY GOOD-NATURED
CONCERNING HOW TO ATTAIN THE HIGHEST HAPPINESS
FOR ONE'S SELF WITH THE LEAST POSSIBLE HARM TO
OTHERS
1906
By ELBERT HUBBARD

CONTENTS

CHAPTERS
1. A Prayer
2. Life and Expression
3. Time and Chance
4. Psychology of a Religious Revival
5. One-Man Power
6. Mental Attitude
7. The Outsider
8. Get Out or Get in Line
9. The Week-Day, Keep it Holy
10. Exclusive Friendships
11. The Folly of Living in the Future
12. The Spirit of Man
13. Art and Religion
14. Initiative
15. The Disagreeable Girl
16. The Neutral
17. Reflections on Progress
18. Sympathy, Knowledge and Poise

19. Love and Faith
20. Giving Something for Nothing
21. Work and Waste
22. The Law of Obedience
23. Society's Saviors
24. Preparing for Old Age
25. An Alliance With Nature
26. The Ex. Question
27. The Sergeant
28. The Spirit of the Age
29. The Grammarian
30. The Best Religion

A Prayer
The supreme prayer of my heart is not to be learned, rich, famous,
powerful, or "good," but simply to be radiant. I desire to radiate health,
cheerfulness, calm courage and good will. I wish to live without hate,
whim, jealousy, envy, fear. I wish to be simple, honest, frank, natural,
clean in mind and clean in body, unaffected--ready to say "I do not
know," if it be so, and to meet all men on an absolute equality--to face
any obstacle and meet every difficulty unabashed and unafraid.
I wish others to live their lives, too--up to their highest, fullest and best.
To that end I pray that I may never meddle, interfere, dictate, give
advice that is not wanted, or assist when my services are not needed. If
I can help people, I'll do it by giving them a chance to help themselves;
and if I can uplift or inspire, let it be by example, inference, and

suggestion, rather than by injunction and dictation. That is to say, I
desire to be radiant--to radiate life.

Life and Expression
By exercise of its faculties the spirit grows, just as a muscle grows
strong thru continued use. Expression is necessary. Life is expression,
and repression is stagnation--death.
Yet, there can be right and wrong expression. If a man permits his life
to run riot and only the animal side of his nature is allowed to express
itself, he is repressing his highest and best, and the qualities not used
atrophy and die.
Men are punished by their sins, not for them. Sensuality, gluttony, and
the life of license repress the life of the spirit, and the soul never
blossoms; and this is what it is to lose one's soul. All adown the
centuries thinking men have noted these truths, and again and again we
find individuals forsaking in horror the life of the senses and devoting
themselves to the life of the spirit. This question of expression through
the spirit, or through the senses--through soul or body--has been the
pivotal point of all philosophy and the inspiration of all religion.
Every religion is made up of two elements that never mix any more
than oil and water mix. A religion is a mechanical mixture, not a
chemical combination, of morality and dogma. Dogma is the science of
the unseen: the doctrine of the unknown and unknowable. And in order
to give this science plausibility, its promulgators have always fastened
upon it morality. Morality can and does exist entirely separate and apart
from dogma, but dogma is ever a parasite on morality, and the business
of the priest is to confuse the two.
But morality and religion never saponify. Morality is simply the
question of expressing your life forces--how to use them? You have so
much energy; and what will you do with it? And from out the multitude
there have always been men to step forward and give you advice for a
consideration. Without their supposed influence with the unseen we
might not accept their interpretation of what