Josh Billings Quotes

It is easier to be virtuous than it is to appear so, and it pays better.

Put an Englishman into the garden of Eden, and he would find fault with the whole blasted concern; put a Yankee in, and he would see where he could alter it to advantage; put an Irishman in, and he would want to boss the thing; put a Dutchman in, and he would proceed to plant it.

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

Early genius, like early cabbage, does not head well.

Love is like the measles; we can't have it bad but once, and the later in life we have it the tougher it goes with us.

The secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing.

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.

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

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.

Wisdom that don't make us happier ain't worth plowing for.

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.

Dr. Holmes says, both wittily and truly, that crying widows are easiest consoled.

Poverty is the step-mother of genius.

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

Jealousy is one of love's parasites.

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

Titles are valuable; they make us acquainted with many persons who otherwise would be lost among the rubbish.

Doesn't know much, but leads the league in nostril hair.

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

Advice maybe wrong, but examples prove themselves.

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

Society is composed of slow Christians and wide-awake sinners.

As the flint contains the spark, unknown to itself, which the steel alone can awaken to life, so adversity often reveals to us hidden gems, which prosperity or negligence would forever have hidden.

About the only difference between the poor and the rich, is this, the poor suffer misery, while the rich have to enjoy it.

Life is short, but it's long enough to ruin any man who wants to be ruined.

Men who have much to say use the fewest words.

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

Men of genius are like eagles, they live on what they kill, while men of talents are like crows, they live on what has been killed for them.

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

Experience increases our wisdom but doesn't reduce our follies.

...But why discourse Upon the Virtues of the Horse? They are too numerous to tell Save when you have a Horse to Sell.

When a man makes up his mind to become a rascal, he should examine himself closely and see if he isn't better constructed for a fool.

Tears are a good alterative, but a poor diet.

True valor is like honesty; it enters into all that a man sees and does.

Pity cost nothing and ain't worth nothing.

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

Advice is like castor oil — easy enough to give but dreadful hard to take.

Man is my brother, and I am nearer related to him through his vices than I am through his virtue.

It's not ignorance does so much damage; it's knowin' so derned much that ain't so.

Menny think tha luv their husbands almost tew deth, when in fack, tha are only jealous ov them.

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

Take the humbug out of this world, and you haven't much left to do business with.

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

Morally considered, laughter is next to the Ten Commandments.

We have some writers so abstruse and deep that they drown themselves in their fathomless sentences.

The highest philosophers, in explaining the mystery of this world, are obliged to call in the aid of another.

Ignorance is the wet-nurse of prejudice.

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