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Josh Billings Quotes

Wisdom in Humor

Josh Billings was the pen name of 19th-century American humorist Henry Wheeler Shaw. He was a famous humor writer and lecturer in the United States, perhaps second only to Mark Twain, during his lifetime.

Humorist | American

Born: 1818-04-21 in Lanesborough, Massachusetts, USA

Died: October 14, 1885 in Monterey, California, USA

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

Josh Billings
age

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

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

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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.

Josh Billings

There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings
god

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.

Josh Billings
god

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

Josh Billings

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

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

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

Josh Billings

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.

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

Genius ain't anything more than elegant common sense.

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

Wisdom has never made a bigot, but learning has.

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

Love looks through a telescope envy, through a microscope.

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

The man whose only pleasure in life is making money, weighs less on the moral scale than an angleworm.

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

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

It ain't often that a man's reputation outlasts his money.

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings
pet

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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

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

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

Wisdom has never made a bigot, but learning has.

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

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