Josh Billings's Quotes

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

The road to ruin is always in good repair, and the travellers pay the expense of it.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 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 think when the full horror of being fifty hits you, you should stay home and have a good cry.

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.

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 nothing than to know what ain't so.

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

No one can disgrace us but ourselves.

Old maids sweeten their tea with scandal.

Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.

Remember the poor, it costs nothing.

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

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.

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

Wisdom has never made a bigot, but learning has.

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

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

Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.

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

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

There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.

Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

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

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

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

Genius ain't anything more than elegant common sense.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Constant togetherness is fine - but only for Siamese twins.

The best thing that could happen to motherhood already has. Fewer women are going into it.