Josh Billings
Full Name: Pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw
Birthdate: April 20, 1818
Birthplace: Lanesboro, Massachusetts, USA
Date of Death: October 14, 1885
Occupation: Author
Profile: 19th century American humorist and lecturer.
Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Billings
Number of Quotes: 113
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love himself.
A gentleman is one who knows how to play the banjo and doesn't.
A good way I know to find happiness, is to not bore a hole to fit the plug.
A jay hasn't got any more principle than a congressman.
A man is never so ignorant as when he knows all about things he don't understand.
A puppy plays with every pup he meets, but an old dog has few associates.
About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.
About the only difference between the poor and the rich, is this, the poor suffer misery, while the rich have to enjoy it.
Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist: it reduces him to his fighting weight.
Advice is like castor oil, easy enough to give but dreadful uneasy to take.
Always take a good look at what you're about to eat. It's not so important to know what it is, but it's critical to know what it was.
As a general rule, if you want to get at the truth — hear both sides and believe neither.
As a general thing, when a woman wears the pants in a family, she has a good right to them.
As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.
Be kind to your mother-in-law, but pay for her board at some good hotel.
Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.
Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius.
Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are and doing things as they ought to be done.
Confess your sins to the Lord and
you will be forgiven; confess them to man and you will be laughed at.
Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.
Don't ever prophesy; for if you prophesy wrong, nobody will forget it; and if you prophesy right, nobody will remember it.
Don't take the bull by the horns; take him by the tail. Then you can let go when you want to.
Economy is a savings-bank, into which men drop pennies, and get dollars in return.
Every man has his follies - and often they are the most interesting thing he has got.
Few people know how to take a joke. Most know how to take half of it.
Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt, not swallowed.
Genius ain't anything more than elegant common sense.
Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.
Half the lies they tell about me ain't true.
Happiness is like a cat; if you try to coax it, it will avoid you, but if you pay no attention to it, it will rub against your legs.
Health is like money, we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it.
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.
I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second time into things that I am most certain of the first time.
I have never known a person to live to be one hundred and be remarkable for anything else.
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.
I honestly believe it is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.
I never met a man so ignorant I couldn't learn something from him.
I think when the full horror of being fifty hits you, you should stay home and have a good cry.
If a man could have half his wishes, he would double his troubles.
If a man should happen to reach perfection in this world, he would have to die immediately to enjoy himself.
If there was no faith there would be no living in this world. We could not even eat hash with any safety.
If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.
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.
Ignorance ain't not knowin' stuff; ignorance is knowin' stuff that AIN'T TRUE.
In youth we run into difficulties; in old age difficulties run into us.
It ain't often that a man's reputation outlasts his money.
It is a very delicate job to forgive a man, without lowering him in his own estimation, and yours too.
It is better to know less than to know so much that ain't so.
It is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.
It is much easier to repent of sins that we have committed than to repent of those that we intend to commit.
It is not all bad, this getting old, ripening. After the fruit has got its growth it
should juice up and mellow. God forbid
I should live long enough to ferment and rot and fall to the ground in a squash.
It's not only the most difficult thing to know oneself, but the most inconvenient.
Knowledge is like money: the more he gets, the more he craves.
Laughter is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one place.
Learning sleeps and snores in libraries, but wisdom is everywhere, wide awake, on tiptoe.
Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.
Life is like a blanket too short. You pull it up and your toes rebel, you yank it down and shivers meander
about your shoulder; but cheerful folks manage to draw their knees up and pass a very comfortable night.
Life is short, but it's long enough to ruin any man who wants to be ruined.
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.
Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.
Man is the only animal that blushes—or needs to.
Man was created a little lower than the angels and has been getting a little lower ever since.
Marrying for love may be a bit risky, but it is so honest
that God can't help but smile on it.
Men mourn for what they have lost; women for what they ain't got.
Money is like manure; it does no good till you spread it around.
Money will buy a pretty good dog, but it won't buy the wag of his tail.
Most people repent their sins by thanking God they ain't so wicked as their neighbors.
Most people when they come to you for advice, come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corrected.
Never work before breakfast; if you have to work before breakfast, get your breakfast first.
No one can disgrace us but ourselves.
Old maids sweeten their tea with scandal.
One of the best temporary cures for pride and affectation is seasickness; a man who wants to vomit never puts on airs.
One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.
One of the rarest things that a man ever does, is to do the best he can.
Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.
Remember the poor, it costs nothing.
Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
Take all the fools out of this world and there wouldn't be any fun living in it, or profit.
The best medicine I know for rheumatism is to thank the Lord that it ain't gout.
The best time for you to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust.
The best time to buy an umbrella is when the sun is shining.
The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way.
The greatest thief this world has ever produced is procrastination, and he is still at large.
The man whose only pleasure in life is making money, weighs less on the moral scale than an angleworm.
The road to ruin is always in good repair, and the travellers pay the expense of it.
The thinner the ice, the more anxious is everyone to see whether it will bear.
The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so.
The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease.
There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory.
There are people who are always anticipating trouble, and in this way they manage to enjoy many sorrows that never really happen to them.
There are some people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the truth without lying.
There are two things in life for which we are never truly prepared: twins.
There are two kinds of fools: those who can't change their opinions and those who won't.
There is no greater evidence of superior intelligence than to be surprised at nothing.
There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.
There is nothing so easy to learn as experience and nothing so hard to apply.
There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together.
There's a lot of people in this world who spend so much time watching their health that they haven't the time to enjoy it.
There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.
Threescore years and ten is enough; if a man can't suffer all the misery he wants in that time, he must be numb.
Time is like money, the less we have of it to spare the further we make it go.
To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.
True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart.
What little I do know, I hope I am certain of.
When a man comes to me for advice, I find out the kind of advice he wants, and I give it to him.
When you see a man with a great deal of religion displayed in his shop window, you may depend upon it, he keeps a very small stock of it within.
Why is it that those who have the least to do are always the busiest?
Wisdom has never made a bigot, but learning has.
Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.
Woman's influence is powerful, especially when she wants something.
Words are often seen hunting for an idea, but ideas are never seen hunting for words.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool mom.
You'd better not know so much, than to know so many things that ain't so.
Last on Earth
