“An executive is a man who makes quick decisions and is sometimes right” was written by American writer and philosopher Elbert Hubbart (1856-1915) in 1907. The jocular quotation has been cited often in business books and articles.
Wikipedia: Ebert Hubbard
Elbert Green Hubbard (June 19, 1856 – May 7, 1915) was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Raised in Hudson, Illinois, he met early success as a traveling salesman with the Larkin Soap Company. Today Hubbard is mostly known as the founder of the Roycroft artisan community in East Aurora, New York, an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Among his many publications were the nine-volume work Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great and the short story A Message to Garcia. He and his second wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, died aboard the RMS Lusitania, which was sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915.
Google Books
October 1907, The Philistine (Vol. 25, no. 5), pg. 151:
An executive is a man who makes quick decisions and is sometimes right.
Google Books
A Thousand & One Epigrams:
Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard
By Elbert Hubbard
East Aurora, NY: The Roycrofters
1911
Pg. 151:
An executive: A man who can make quick decisions and is sometimes right.
Chronicling America
2 October 1912, Mt. Sterling (KY) Advocate, pg. 2, col. 3:
An executive is a man who makes quick decisions and is sometimes right.
17 March 1914, Cleburne (TX) Morning Review, pg. 2, col. 2:
EPIGRAMS.
(From the Book by Elbert Hubbard)
(...)
An executive: A man who can make quick decisions and is sometimes right.
Google Books
The Wit and wisdom of Wall Street
By Bill Adler
Homewood, IL: Dow Jones-Irwin
1985
Pg. 26:
An executive: A man who can make quick decisions and is sometimes right.
Elbert Hubbard
Twitter
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“An executive is a man who can make quick decisions and is sometimes right.” - Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915) http://bit.ly/9422NM #quote
11:37 PM - 22 Sep 2014
Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.
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Above, Big Apple Corner at 54th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Google Maps. Stolen and missing, 2021-2024.
Above, John J. Fitz Gerald, from the Aug. 15, 1931, Binghamton (NY) Press, pg. 14.
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