Faith & Spirit Quote by Elbert Hubbard

Hubbard’s line flatters the Protestant itch to turn virtue into productivity, but it does it with a sleight of hand that makes the bargain feel spiritual instead of transactional. The “highest reward” isn’t praise, comfort, or even salvation; it’s more capacity, more range, more competence. God, in this framing, isn’t a dispenser of trophies. He’s a kind of cosmic manager who pays you in increased responsibility. That’s both inspiring and faintly ominous.

The subtext is a moral argument against resting on laurels. If you did good work and the only thing you got was applause, you might start performing for the room. Hubbard insists the real dividend is internal: skill compounding into skill, character thickening into capability. It’s an ethic that treats improvement as evidence of grace. You can’t fake it; you either can do better work or you can’t.

Context matters. Hubbard wrote in an America intoxicated with self-help, industry, and the romance of the striver. As the Roycroft movement sold handcrafted integrity against the churn of mass production, this quote harmonized craft with righteousness: make something well, and the reward is a deeper mastery, not a bigger check. It’s a sanctification of practice. The line also doubles as a cultural permission slip for ambition: wanting to get better isn’t vanity; it’s the very reward you’re meant to seek.