Josh Billings Quotes

To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.

One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.

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

Learning sleeps and snores in libraries, but wisdom is everywhere, wide awake, on tiptoe.

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

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.

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

It ain't what a man don't know that makes him a fool, but what he does know that ain't so.

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

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

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

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.

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

Money will buy a pretty good dog, but it won't buy the wag of his tail.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

The trouble with most folks isn't their ignorance. It's knowin' so many things that ain't so.

Genius ain't anything more than elegant common sense.

One of the best temporary cures for pride and affectation is seasickness; a man who wants to vomit never puts on airs.

Laughter is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one place.

Man was created a little lower than the angels and has been getting a little lower ever since.

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

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

There is nothing so easy to learn as experience and nothing so hard to apply.

Confess your sins to the Lord and you will be forgiven; confess them to man and you will be laughed at.

There are two things in life for which we are never truly prepared: twins.

Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.

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.

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

There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory.

My advice to those who are about to begin, in earnest, the journey of life, is to take their heart in one hand and a club in the other.

The man who ain't got an enemy is really poor.

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

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

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

The less we know the more we suspect

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

Poverty is the step-mother of genius.

Keep a cow, and the milk won't have to be watered but once.

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

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

Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius.

Marrying for love may be a bit risky, but it is so honest that God can't help but smile on it.

There is a sort of charm in ugliness, if the person has some redeeming qualities and is only ugly enough.

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

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

The trouble ain't that people are ignorant: it's that they know so much that ain't so

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

There are people who are always anticipating trouble, and in this way they manage to enjoy many sorrows that never really happen to them.

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.

It is the little bits of things that fret and worry us; we can dodge a elephant, but we can't dodge a fly.

Occasions are rare; and those, who know how to seize upon them, are rarer.

Better make a weak man your enemy than your friend.

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

When a man comes to me for advice, I find out the kind of advice he wants, and I give it to him.

The truly innocent are those who not only are guiltless themselves but who think others are.

There is gravity in wisdom, but no particular wisdom in gravity.

Incredulity is the wisdom of the fool.

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

Words are often seen hunting for an idea, but ideas are never seen hunting for words.

Old maids sweeten their tea with scandal.

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

Every man has his follies - and often they are the most interesting thing he has got.

The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease.

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.

Pity cost nothing and ain't worth nothing.

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

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

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

We hate those who will not take our advice, and despise them who do.

If a man is right, he can't be too radical; if he is wrong, he can't be too conservative.

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