Life & Wisdom Quote by Elbert Hubbard

Action is cheap; intention is costly. Hubbard’s line slices against the American fetish for “hustle” by arguing that the hard part isn’t doing, it’s choosing. “It does not take much strength to do things” sounds almost dismissive, a jab at the busywork we mistake for virtue. Anyone can muscle through tasks when the track is already laid, when expectations, bosses, or habits have pre-decided the route. The real exertion arrives one step earlier: “to decide on what to do.” That’s where risk, responsibility, and identity live.

The subtext is moral as much as practical. Deciding is a referendum on values: which commitments deserve your finite time, which temptations you’ll refuse, which version of yourself you’ll make real. Hubbard frames willpower not as grit in execution but as clarity under uncertainty. Picking a direction means tolerating the discomfort of closing doors, disappointing people, and being judged for outcomes you can’t fully control. “Great strength” here is the stamina to live with trade-offs.

Context matters: Hubbard wrote in the early 20th-century world of self-help uplift, industrial efficiency, and an emerging managerial culture that prized productivity. His twist is quietly subversive. He’s warning that efficiency without discernment becomes a treadmill: lots of motion, little meaning. The quote endures because it flatters neither laziness nor mere industriousness; it elevates the most modern, most exhausting task of all - making a deliberate life in a world engineered to keep you busy.