Quotes by Billings, Josh

"Consider the postage stamp, my son. It secures success through its ability to stick to one thing till it gets there."

Billings, Josh on perseverance
7 fans of this quote   

"To enjoy a good reputation give publicly, and steal privately."

Billings, Josh on philanthropists   

"Pity cost nothing and ain't worth nothing."

Billings, Josh on pity   

"A good place to visit, but a poor place to stay."

Billings, Josh on places   

"About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment."

Billings, Josh on plagiarism   

"Don't mistake pleasure for happiness. They are a different breed of dogs."

Billings, Josh on pleasure   

"It is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so."

Billings, Josh on attitude
5 fans of this quote   

"Poverty is the step-mother of genius."

Billings, Josh on poverty and the poor
3 fans of this quote   

"Remember the poor, it costs nothing."

Billings, Josh on poverty and the poor   

"I am a poor man, but I have this consolation: I am poor by accident, not by design."

Billings, Josh on poverty and the poor   

"Woman's influence is powerful, especially when she wants something."

Billings, Josh on power   

"Don't put off till tomorrow what can be enjoyed today."

Billings, Josh on procrastination
3 fans of this quote   

"Don't ever prophesy; for if you prophesy wrong, nobody will forget it; and if you prophesy right, nobody will remember it."

Billings, Josh on prophecy   

"One of the rarest things that a man ever does, is to do the best he can."

Billings, Josh on quality   

"It is much easier to repent of sins that we have committed than to repent of those that we intend to commit."

Billings, Josh on repentance   

"Most people repent their sins by thanking God they ain't so wicked as their neighbors."

Billings, Josh on repentance   

"Old maids sweeten their tea with scandal."

Billings, Josh on scandal   

"The best time for you to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust."

Billings, Josh on self-control
8 fans of this quote   

"It's not only the most difficult thing to know one's self, but the most inconvenient."

Billings, Josh on self discovery
3 fans of this quote   

"It's not only the most difficult thing to know one's self, but the most inconvenient."

Billings, Josh on knowledge   

"Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute."

Billings, Josh on silence
6 fans of this quote   

"I don't care how much a person talks, if they only say it in a few words."

Billings, Josh on speakers and speaking   

"As long as we are lucky we attribute it to our smartness; our bad luck we give the gods credit for."

Billings, Josh on success   

"Wisdom has never made a bigot, but learning has."

Billings, Josh on bigotry   

"There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together."

Billings, Josh on brevity
9 fans of this quote   

"The happiest time in a man's life is when he is in the red hot pursuit of a dollar with a reasonable prospect of overtaking it."

Billings, Josh on business   

"I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second time into things that I am the most certain of the first time."

Billings, Josh on certainty   

"There is no greater evidence of superior intelligence than to be surprised at nothing."

Billings, Josh on surprises   

"Time is like money, the less we have of it to spare the further we make it go."

Billings, Josh on time
3 fans of this quote   

"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."

Billings, Josh on truth   

"To bring up a child in the way he should go -- travel that way yourself."

Billings, Josh on upbringing   

"There is a significant Latin proverb; to wit: Who will guard the guards?"

Billings, Josh on vigilance
4 fans of this quote   

"It ain't so much trouble to get rich as it is to tell when we have got rich."

Billings, Josh on wealth   

"It is a statistical fact that the wicked work harder to reach hell than the righteous do to enter heaven."

Billings, Josh on wickedness   

"Some folks are wise and some otherwise."

Billings, Josh on wisdom   

"Never work before breakfast. If you have to work before breakfast, get your breakfast first."

Billings, Josh on work   

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

Billings, Josh on youth   

"Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist -- it reduces him to his fighting weight."

Billings, Josh on adversity   

"Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done."

Billings, Josh on common sense   

"Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does."

Billings, Josh on science