Josh Billings Quotes

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

[Science is] the literature of truth.

I've never known an auctioneer to lie unless it was absolutely necessary.

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

We should make virtue our master, not our servant.

One legged chickens, I know, are the least apt to scratch a garden.

True wisdom is plenty of experience, observation, and reflection. False wisdom is plenty of ignorance, arrogance, and impudence.

Experience is a grindstone; and it is lucky for us, if we can get brightened by it, and not ground.

Everyone who does the best he can is a hero.

Wisdom deprives even poverty of half its power.

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

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

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.

Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.

Take the selfishness out of this world and there would be more happiness than we should know what to do with.

Unless we put heart and soul into our labor we but brutify our actions.

Most men would rather be charged with malice than with making a blunder.

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

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

I never question a success, any more than I do the right of a bulldog to lie in his own gateway.

Advice is like kissing: it costs nothing and is a pleasant thing to do.

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

Advice can be like cod liver oil, easy enough to administer but not so pleasant to take for anybody.

Fortune is like a coquette; if you don't run after her, she will run after you.

Remember the poor, it costs nothing.

Ignorance ain't not knowin' stuff; ignorance is knowin' stuff that AIN'T TRUE.

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

Everybody in this world wants watching, but nobody more than ourselves.

The best condition in life is to be not so rich as to be envied nor so poor as to be damned.

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

A WISE MAN never enjoys himself so much, or a FOOL so little, as when he is alone.

Most everyone seems willing to be a fool himself, but he can't bear to have anyone else one.

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.

Good nonsense is good sense in disguise.

As a general thing, an individual who is neat in his person is neat in his morals.

I hate to be a kicker, I always long for peace, But the wheel that does the squeaking, is the one that gets the grease.

Silence is a still noise.

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

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

Waves are inspiring not because they rise and fail, but because each time they fall. They never fail to rise again.

You can reach stupidity only with a cannon ball.

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

It is a very delicate job to forgive a man, without lowering him in his own estimation, and yours too.

There are only two qualities in the world: efficiency and inefficiency; and only two sorts of people: the efficient and the inefficient.

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

Ambition is like hunger; it obeys no law but its appetite

Fun is a sugar-coated physic.

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