Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

Advice is like castor oil, easy to give, but dreadful to take.

— Josh Billings

Most people when they come to you for advice, come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corrected.

— Josh Billings

I have never known a person to live to be one hundred and be remarkable for anything else.

— Josh Billings

In youth we run into difficulties. In old age difficulties run into us.

— Josh Billings

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself.

— Josh Billings

The thinner the ice, the more anxious is everyone to see whether it will bear.

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

Wisdom has never made a bigot, but learning has.

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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.

— Josh Billings

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.

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.

— Josh Billings

Don't take the bull by the horns, take him by the tail; then you can let go when you want to.

— Josh Billings

Always live within your income, even if you have to borrow money to do so.

— Josh Billings

Never run into debt, not if you can find anything else to run into.

— Josh Billings

When a man gets talking about himself, he seldom fails to be eloquent and often reaches the sublime.

— Josh Billings

There are some people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the truth without lying.

— Josh Billings

Experience is a school where a man learns what a big fool he has been.

— Josh Billings

Experience increases our wisdom but doesn't reduce our follies.

— Josh Billings

If there was no faith there would be no living in this world. We could not even eat hash with any safety.

— Josh Billings

Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt, not swallowed.

— Josh Billings

There are two kinds of fools: those who can't change their opinions and those who won t.

— Josh Billings

Take all the fools out of this world and there wouldn't be any fun living in it, or profit.

— Josh Billings

The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his way.

— Josh Billings

There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.

— Josh Billings

A puppy plays with every pup he meets, but an old dog has few associates.

— Josh Billings

The miser and the glutton are two facetious buzzards: one hides his store, and the other stores his hide.

— Josh Billings

A good way I know to find happiness, is to not bore a hole to fit the plug.

— Josh Billings

If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it as the old woman did her lost spectacles. Safe on her own nose all the time.

— Josh Billings

There's lots of people who spend so much time watching their health, they haven't got time to enjoy it.

— Josh Billings

Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain't lawful tender for a loaf of bread.

— Josh Billings

The more humble a man is before God the more he will be exalted; the more humble he is before man, the more he will get rode roughshod.

— Josh Billings

Incredulity is the wisdom of the fool.

— Josh Billings

I honestly believe it is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.

— Josh Billings

Knowledge is like money: the more he gets, the more he craves.

— Josh Billings

The trouble with most folks ain't so much their ignorance as knowing so many things that ain't so.

— Josh Billings

Threescore years and ten is enough; if a man can't suffer all the misery he wants in that time, he must be numb.

— Josh Billings

Life is short, but it's long enough to ruin any man who wants to be ruined.

— Josh Billings

Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.

— Josh Billings

Love is said to be blind, but I know some fellows in love who can see twice as much in their sweethearts as I do.

— Josh Billings

As a general thing, when the woman wears the pants in the family, she has a good right to them.

— Josh Billings

The best medicine I know for rheumatism is to thank the Lord it ain't the gout.

— Josh Billings

Men mourn for what they have lost; women for what they ain't got.

— Josh Billings

I haven't got as much money as some folks, but I've got as much impudence as any of them, and that's the next thing to money.

— Josh Billings

Be kind to your mother-in-law, but pay for her board at some good hotel.

— Josh Billings

Music hath the charm to soothe a savage beast, but I'd try a revolver first.

— Josh Billings

If a man should happen to reach perfection in this world, he would have to die immediately to enjoy himself.

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

Pity cost nothing and ain't worth nothing.

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

Poverty is the step-mother of genius.

— Josh Billings

Remember the poor, it costs nothing.

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

Old maids sweeten their tea with scandal.

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

Some folks are wise and some otherwise.

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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.

— Josh Billings

The trouble with people is not that they dont know but that they know so much that aint so.

— Josh Billings

Court a gal for fun, for the luv yu bear her, for the vartue and bissness thare is in her; court her for a wife and for a mother, court her as yu wud court a farm--for the strength ov the sile and the parfeckshun ov the title; court her as tho she want a fule, and yu a nuther; court her in the kitchen, in the parlor, over the wash-tub, and at the pianner; court this way, yung man, and if yu don't git a good wife and she don't git a good hustband, the falt won't be in the courting.

— Josh Billings

Babys i luv with all mi heart; they are mi sweetmeats, they warm up mi blood like a gin sling, they krawl into me and nestle by the side ov mi soul, like a kitten under a cook stove. . . . I have got grandchildren, and they are wuss than the first krop tew riot amung the feelings.

— Josh Billings

Laffing keeps oph sickness, and haz conquered az menny diseases az ever pills have, and at mutch less expense.--It makes flesh, and keeps it in its place. It drives away weariness and brings a dream ov sweeness to the sleeper.

— Josh Billings

Thare are hotels that are a joy upon earth, where a man pays hiz bill az cheerfully az he did the parson who married him, whare yu kant find the landlord unless yu hunt in the kitchen, whare servants glide around like angels ov mercy, whare the beds fit a man's back like the feathers on a goose, and whare the vittle taste just az tho yure wife, or yure mother had fried them. Theze kind ov hotels ought tew be bilt on wheels and travel around the country; they are az phull ov real cumfort az a thanksgiving pudding, but alass! yes, alass! they are az unplenty az double-yelked eggs.

— Josh Billings

Flattery iz like ice-cream--to relish good we want it a little at a time, and often. The more yu praze a man who don't deserve it, the more yu abuze him. Yu kan't flatter a truly wize man--he knows just how much praze iz due him; that he takes, and charges over all the balance tew the proffit and loss ackount.

— Josh Billings

Tew look upon the trak that life takes--tew see the sunshine and shower--tew plead for the best, and shrink from the wust--tew shudder when sikness steals on, and tew be chastened when death comes--tiz this--oh! tiz this that makes the fust baby a hope upon arth, and a gem up in heaven.

— Josh Billings

Thare aint no resipee for a perfekt wife, enny more than there iz for a perfekt husband. There iz just az menny good wifes az thare iz good husbands, and i never knew two people, married or single, who were determined tew make themselfs agreeable to each other, but what they suckceeded.

— Josh Billings