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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
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If I had 4 fust rate dogs i would name the best one "Doubtful" and the other 3 "Useless".
Josh Billings
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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
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The wheel that squeaks the loudest
Is the one that gets the grease.
Josh Billings
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Accepting praise that is not our due is not much better than to be a receiver of stolen goods.
Josh Billings
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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
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Money will buy a pretty good dog, but it won't buy the wag of his tail.
Josh Billings
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Don't mistake vivacity for wit, there is about as much difference as there is between lightning and a lightning bug.
Josh Billings
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Prejudice is a house plant that is very apt to wither if you take it out doors amongst folks.
Josh Billings
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Every man has his follies - and often they are the most interesting thing he has got.
Josh Billings
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When a man starts down hill everything is greased for the occasion.
Josh Billings
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Most people repent their sins by thanking God they ain't so wicked as their neighbors.
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There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together.
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Knowledge is like money, the more a man gits the more he hankers for.
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Advice is like castor oil, easy enough to give but dreadful uneasy to take.
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Mankind loves mysteries — a hole in the ground, excites more wonder than a star in the heavens.
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There is such a thing as being always too quick — I am one of that kind myself, I always miss a railroad train by being there half an hour too soon.
Josh Billings
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Life is a grindstone, and whether it grinds a man down or polishes him up depends on the stuff he's made of.
Josh Billings
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Poor human nature is too full of its own grievances to have any pity to spare, — if you show a man a big bile on your arm, he will tell you he had one twice as big as that, on the same spot, last year.
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Man was created a little lower than the angels and has been getting a little lower ever since.
Josh Billings
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I wouldn't undertake to correct a man's sectarian views any quicker than I would tell him which road to take at a 4 corners, when I didn't know myself which was the right one.
Josh Billings
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I believe in the universal salvation of men, but I want to pick the men.
Josh Billings
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If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it, as the old woman did her spectacles, safe on her nose all the time.
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There are people who don't do anything but watch their symptoms. I have seen dogs act just as sensible, I have seen a rat terrier watch the symptoms of a knot hole, in a board fence, all day, for some rat to come out, but no rat came out.
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If it want for faith, thare would be no living in this world. We couldn't even eat hash with enny safety, if it want for faith.
Josh Billings
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Quote of the day
Joy is like restless day; but peace divine Like quiet night; Lead me, O Lord, — till perfect Day shall shine Through Peace to Light.
Adelaide Anne Procter
Josh Billings
Creative Commons
Born:
April 21, 1818
Died:
October 14, 1885
(aged 67)
Bio:
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 the latter half of the 19th century.
Known for:
Josh Billings, Hiz Sayings (1865)
Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868)
Most used words:
man
time
people
find
folks
life
money
poor
hole
tew
truth
day
human
sins
repent
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