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Who really said it

The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion

Hubbard — attested by witnesses, not by any document L. Ron Hubbard 1911–1986 · pulp science-fiction writer, founder of Dianetics and Scientology
Attributed Rights unconfirmed

This is an unusual case, and worth stating precisely: the remark is well attested and undocumented at the same time. At least four people who knew Hubbard in the 1940s independently recalled him saying a version of it — the fullest account is Sam Moskowitz, who ran the Eastern Science Fiction Association and later swore an affidavit about a meeting in Newark on 7 November 1948. But there is no recording, no manuscript and no contemporaneous note, no two witnesses give the same words, and the Church of Scientology disputes the whole thing, producing two attendees who swore he said no such thing. Believe it or not on the strength of the testimony; there is no document to settle it.

Last verified 21 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion” Attributed to L. Ron Hubbard on the testimony of several science-fiction contemporaries of the 1940s, including Sam Moskowitz under oath. No recording or manuscript exists, and the Church of Scientology disputes it.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the world of L. Ron Hubbard — pulp science-fiction writer, founder of Dianetics and Scientology. Theme: "The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Best record
Sam Moskowitz’s sworn affidavit
Occasion recalled
Eastern SF Association, Newark, 7 Nov 1948
Other witnesses
Eshbach, Merwin, Himmel — 1945–49
Documentary proof
None — no recording or manuscript

You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion. Newark, 7 November 1948

Moskowitz's wording, as given in his affidavit. It is worth seeing how far it is from the polished aphorism people quote: it is an answer to a question about the pulp rates, from a man who was at that moment being paid roughly a penny a word. The version everyone knows has been tidied into an epigram.

The collected witness accounts, with sources

How we traced it

  • Sam Moskowitz is the anchor. A well-known science-fiction historian and the director of the Eastern Science Fiction Association, he said Hubbard gave this answer to a question about making money from writing at a meeting in Newark, New Jersey. He repeated the story for decades and eventually set it down in a signed affidavit the collected accounts ↗.
  • He was not the only one. The publisher Lloyd Arthur Eshbach recalled Hubbard saying ‘I’d like to start a religion. That’s where the money is’ and printed it in his 1983 memoir Over My Shoulder. The editor Sam Merwin recalled a similar remark from around December 1946, and Neison Himmel, who briefly shared rooms with Hubbard in Pasadena in the autumn of 1945, told an interviewer that Hubbard often said the easiest way to make money would be to start a religion. Those two accounts appear in Russell Miller’s Bare-Faced Messiah (1987).
  • Moskowitz was also interviewed about Hubbard by the US Food and Drug Administration, whose Scientology investigation files — the E-meter case — have since been declassified and put online. We have located the released collection but not the individual interview memo, so we do not quote from it and we do not give it a page reference the released FDA files ↗.
  • The Church of Scientology denies it flatly, and its objections are specific rather than hand-waving: two other attendees of the Newark meeting, David A. Kyle and Jay Kay Klein, swore Hubbard said nothing of the kind, and the surviving minutes of that meeting summarise his remarks without any such line the Church’s case ↗.
  • What we could not establish: which wording, if any, Hubbard actually used. The versions range from ‘start a religion’ to ‘start a cult’, and the round ‘million dollars’ of the popular form appears in some retellings and not others.

We give no rights status, because there is no first publication to hang one on: the sentence exists only in other people’s recollections, each of which carries its own copyright. Moskowitz’s affidavit and Eshbach’s 1983 memoir belong to their authors and estates; the FDA interview memo, as a US government record, is not protected. Hubbard died in 1986 and his own writings are in copyright until 2056 in the UK and EU, and are policed unusually vigorously — but a sentence he is reported to have said in conversation is not a work of his. Quote it with attribution, as reported speech, and name the witness. This is not legal advice.

Fact-check

How good is the evidence?

Nobody else is offered as the author, so this is not a misattribution question. It is an evidence question: how much weight can several old memories carry when there is no document behind them?

Four independent witnesses strongest point

Moskowitz, Eshbach, Merwin and Himmel were not collaborating, and their recollections span 1945 to 1949 in three different cities. Independent convergence on the same idea is real evidence, even when the wording differs.

One of them swore to it affidavit

Moskowitz put his account in a signed affidavit rather than an anecdote, which raises the cost of being wrong — and he was a serious historian of the field, not a hostile stranger.

The meeting minutes no such line

Minutes of the Newark meeting survive and summarise Hubbard’s remarks without it. Minutes are selective, but this is a genuine hole in the strongest account the Church’s case ↗.

Two attendees swore the opposite contested

David A. Kyle and Jay Kay Klein, both present, stated that Hubbard said nothing of the kind. Sworn statements on both sides is exactly the situation a document would resolve, and there is no document.

No fixed text drift

‘You don’t get rich writing science fiction — if you want to get rich, you start a religion.’ ‘I’d like to start a religion. That’s where the money is.’ ‘The easiest way to make money would be to start a religion.’ The polished million-dollar version on this page is the one that circulates and the one no witness actually reports.

Sometimes confused different saying

A similar line about founding a religion for profit is occasionally attached to Orwell or to Mark Twain. Neither has a source; the Hubbard version is the only one with named witnesses attached.

Attested but undocumented. Several people who knew Hubbard in the 1940s recalled him saying a version of it, one of them under oath — but there is no recording, no manuscript, no agreed wording, and the Church of Scientology contests it with sworn statements of its own the accounts ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

It is quoted as a smoking gun: proof that the whole thing was a business plan announced in advance. That is why the evidential standard matters more here than on almost any other quotation we handle — the line is doing work that only a document could really justify.

Read without that freight, it is also just a very good joke about being paid a penny a word. Hubbard was one of the fastest pulp writers alive and still not rich, and the room he supposedly said it in was full of people in exactly the same position.

Four witnesses, one affidavit, no document. That is a real category — and it is not the same as proof.

The witnesses, in order

Autumn 1945, Pasadena: Neison Himmel, briefly Hubbard's roommate, recalls him saying the easiest way to make money would be to start a religion. Interviewed in 1986 for Bare-Faced Messiah.

December 1946: the editor Sam Merwin recalls a similar remark, also recorded in Bare-Faced Messiah.

7 November 1948, Newark: the Eastern Science Fiction Association meeting at the heart of the dispute. Sam Moskowitz's account; two other attendees later swore it did not happen. A date of 11 November also circulates.

1949: the publisher Lloyd Arthur Eshbach recalls 'I'd like to start a religion. That's where the money is', printed in his 1983 memoir Over My Shoulder.

1950: Dianetics is published. 1953: the Church of Scientology is founded.

1978-80: the saying reaches a mass audience through the Los Angeles Times and Reader's Digest, by which point the wording has hardened into the epigram.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Power Success

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

L. Ron Hubbard — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

The witness accounts side by side — Moskowitz, Eshbach, Merwin, Himmel, Sturgeon — each with a date and a citation.
Statement of Sam Moskowitz (Church of Scientology)standleague.org

The Church’s side: the meeting minutes and the sworn denials from two other attendees.
The 'Make a Million Dollars' myth — Scientology's rebuttalstandleague.org

The full published rebuttal, worth reading before deciding what you think of the testimony.
Declassified FDA files on Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientologyarchive.org

The released US government investigation files, which include the agency’s interviews with Hubbard’s contemporaries.

The credited author

About L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard

1911–1986 · pulp science-fiction writer, founder of Dianetics and Scientology

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) was a prolific and fast pulp writer — westerns, adventure, science fiction — before publishing Dianetics in 1950 and founding the Church of Scientology in 1953. The remark on this page is quoted so often because of what happened next, and that is also the reason to handle it carefully: a line that sounds like a confession of intent is exactly the kind of thing memory improves over forty years. Several people who knew him in the pulp years recalled him saying it; the Church has contested it for as long as it has circulated, and Hubbard himself is not recorded as being asked about it.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Reported speech. Sam Moskowitz, affidavit, on a meeting of the Eastern Science Fiction Association, Newark, 7 November 1948; corroborating recollections from Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, Over My Shoulder (1983), and from Sam Merwin and Neison Himmel in Russell Miller, Bare-Faced Messiah (1987). No recording or manuscript exists; disputed by the Church of Scientology.

MLA (9th ed.)

Hubbard, L. Ron. Reported remark, Newark, 7 Nov. 1948. Qtd. in affidavit of Sam Moskowitz.

APA (7th ed.)

Hubbard, L. R. (1948, November 7). Reported remark, Eastern Science Fiction Association, Newark [affidavit of S. Moskowitz].

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion’?” Last verified 21 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-way-to-make-a-million-dollars-is-to-start-a-religion

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