Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.

1. 2 August 1890Before it · credited to The Great Barrington NewsThe Fall River Evening News credits the Great Barrington News with advice to make the best of this world, ‘for you’ll never get out of it alive’: the punch line, without ‘seriously’.It is well to make the best of this world, for you’ll never get out of it alive.Fall River Evening News (Fall River, Massachusetts), 2 August 1890, p. 4, col. 1 (untitled brief item), p. 4. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand.
2. December 1900Earliest found · credited to Elbert Hubbard (his own essay)Hubbard opens an essay in The Philistine (‘Heart to Heart Talks with Philistines by the Pastor of His Flock’) with the saying.Dear Playmate in the Kindergarten of God: Please do not take life quite so seriously—you surely will never get out of it alive.Elbert Hubbard, ‘Heart to Heart Talks with Philistines by the Pastor of His Flock’, The Philistine: A Periodical of Protest, vol. 12, no. 1 (East Aurora: The Roycrofters, December 1900), p. 24. Checked in the text of a page scan, not the image. Source
3. December 1900Credited to HubbardLove’s Medical Mirror reprints the opening of the essay, signed “Hubbard”.Dear Playmate in the Kindergarten of God: Please do not take life quite so seriously—you surely will never get out of it alive . . .Love’s Medical Mirror, vol. 11, no. 12 (December 1900), advertising section, cover page, p. 1 (advertising section). Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand.
4. 1911Reworded · credited to Elbert HubbardThe Roycrofters’ A Thousand & One Epigrams prints the shorter one-line form.Do not take life too seriously—you will never get out of it alive.A Thousand & One Epigrams, Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (East Aurora: The Roycrofters, 1911), p. 74. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand.
5. 1923Spread · credited to Elbert HubbardThe posthumous Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams prints the one-line form among his epigrams.Do not take life too seriously—you will never get out of it alive.Elbert Hubbard, Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (East Aurora: The Roycrofters, 1923), p. 105. Checked on a page scan. Source
6. 1978Credited to Alphonse Allais; Bernard Le Bovier de FontenelleA French reference book says the saying, often given to Alphonse Allais, is really Fontenelle’s, without a citation.Claude Valette and Tom Burnam, Vrai ou Faux? Encyclopédie des idées reçues (Paris: France Loisirs, 1978), p. 176. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand.

Hubbard first wrote it in December 1900 in The Philistine, his monthly, at the start of an essay addressed to ‘Dear Playmate in the Kindergarten of God’: ‘Please do not take life quite so seriously—you surely will never get out of it alive’, going on to say that buying and selling, churches, banks and newspapers matter no more than a child’s paper houses. The Roycrofters later printed it as a one-line epigram, in A Thousand & One Epigrams (1911) and in the posthumous Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (1923).

Life is going to end anyway, so treat its worries, ambitions and possessions lightly: they are less important than they seem.

Often shared as a carefree joke. In the 1900 essay it is part of a religious-humorous argument that worldly business is a child’s game in ‘the Kindergarten of God’, not advice to be careless.

• A misquotationDon’t take life too seriously; you’ll never get out of it alive. The usual modern wording, with contractions; one of the forms Quote Investigator’s questioner cites. Where it was seen
• Another public-domain translationNe prenez pas la vie au sérieux. De toute façon vous n’en sortirez pas vivant. The French form, credited to Alphonse Allais or to Fontenelle (1657–1757); Quote Investigator found no support for either before Hubbard’s 1900 essay. Quoted from Vrai ou Faux? (1978) as Quote Investigator gives it. Where it was seen

• Walt Kelly, 1950: In the Pogo strip of 24 June 1950 Porky Pine says “DON’T TAKE LIFE SO SERIOUS, SON … IT AIN’T NOHOW PERMANENT.”, a kindred saying with its own history (per Quote Investigator). Source

Life, Death, Wisdom

• The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. (paraphrase) Mark Twain
• Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. Mark Twain
• You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. (misattributed) Mae West
• Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. (misattributed) Oscar Wilde
• Familiarity breeds contempt—and children. Mark Twain

• quoteinvestigator.com/2021/05/17/serious-life (Quote Investigator, ‘Do Not Take Life Too Seriously. You Will Never Get Out of It Alive’, 17 May 2021)
• quoteinvestigator.com/2018/11/03/so-serious (Quote Investigator on the 1950 Pogo strip)
• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Elbert_Hubbard (A Thousand & One Epigrams, p. 74)

Elbert Hubbard, Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (1923), Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (1923), Book of Epigrams, p. 105; first in The Philistine, December 1900, p. 24. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/do-not-take-life-too-seriously/ (23 October 2026).

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