Life & Wisdom Quote by Elbert Hubbard

Memento mori, but with a grin and a rolled-up sleeve. Hubbard’s line works because it sneaks a death sentence into a self-help cadence, then dares you to laugh at it. “Do not take life too seriously” reads like a scold aimed at the anxious striver; the punchline - “You will never get out of it alive” - yanks the rug out from under every fantasy of control. The joke isn’t just that death is inevitable. It’s that seriousness, the posture of mastery, is its own kind of denial.

Hubbard was a writer-entrepreneur of the early 20th century, a period drunk on productivity, moral improvement, and the American cult of character. In that context, the quote doubles as a quiet rebellion against the era’s stiff-backed earnestness: your plans, reputations, and carefully curated virtues won’t negotiate with biology. The line punctures vanity without sounding cruel, because humor is the delivery system. It lets him say something potentially bleak - your efforts end the same way - while offering a usable consolation: lighten your grip.

The subtext is also a warning about performance. Taking life “too seriously” isn’t merely caring; it’s confusing the social scoreboard for the point of the game. By framing death as the one guaranteed exit, Hubbard makes a practical argument for levity: not escapism, but proportion. If the ending is non-negotiable, the sane response is to live with more play, fewer theatrics, and a little less reverence for your own narrative.