Josh Billings Quotes

175 Sourced Quotes

Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just, But four times he who gets his blow in fust

Josh Billings
I never have seen a bigot yet but what had a small and apparently brainless head — but I haven't seen all the bigots, you know.

Josh Billings
If we would all of us take care of our own souls, and let our neighbors alone, there would be less time lost, and more souls saved.

Josh Billings
Truth is the only thing that Time cannot destroy, and Eternity cannot dispense with.

Josh Billings
You can't analyze a kiss any more than you can the breath of a flower.

Josh Billings
I don't never have any trouble in regulating my own conduct, but to keep other folks straight is what bothers me.

Josh Billings
When I see a poor, and proud aristocrat, particular about punctilio, he always puts me in mind of a drunken man, trying to walk a crack.

Josh Billings
Advice is like kissing; it costs nothing and is a pleasant thing to do.

Josh Billings
To enjoy a good reputation, give publicly, and steal privately.

Josh Billings
The money and morality ov [sic] this world are a good deal alike, the principle never loses sight ov the interest.

Josh Billings
It requires more good judgment to know when to talk, than what to say.

Josh Billings
I don't believe in fighting; I am solemnly against it; but if a man gets to fighting, I am also solemnly against his getting licked. After a fight is once opened, all the virtue there is in it is to lick the other party.

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

Josh Billings
Nature does all her big and little jobs without making any force; the earth goes around the sun, the moon changes, the eclipses, and the polliwog, silently and taillessly, becomes a frog, but man can't even deliver a small-sized 4th of July oration without knocking down a mountain or two, and taring up three or four primeval forests by the bleeding roots.

Josh Billings
Misanthropy don't pay—thare aint no man living whoze hate the world cares one cuss for.

Josh Billings
This setting down and folding our arms, and waiting for something to turn up, is just about as rich a speculation as going out into a four hundred acre lot, setting down on a sharp stone, with a pail between our knees, and waiting for a cow to back up and be milked.

Josh Billings
If I had 4 fust rate dogs i would name the best one "Doubtful" and the other 3 "Useless".

Josh Billings
All human happiness is conservative; 2 thirds of the pleasure in sliding down hill consists in drawing the sled back. I don't suppose there would be any fun in sliding down a hill 34 miles long.

Josh Billings
The wheel that squeaks the loudest
Is the one that gets the grease.

Josh Billings
Accepting praise that is not our due is not much better than to be a receiver of stolen goods.

Josh Billings
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.

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

Josh Billings
Don't mistake vivacity for wit, there is about as much difference as there is between lightning and a lightning bug.

Josh Billings
Prejudice is a house plant that is very apt to wither if you take it out doors amongst folks.

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

Josh Billings
When a man starts down hill everything is greased for the occasion.

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

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

Josh Billings
Knowledge is like money, the more a man gits the more he hankers for.

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

Josh Billings