Josh Billings Quotes

175 Sourced Quotes

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

Josh Billings
I rather admire the insolent civility of a bull-tarrier, who only growls when I pass by him, but I never did like it in a man.

Josh Billings
The lion and the lamb may, possibly, sometime lay down in this world together for a few minutes, but when the lion comes to get up, the lamb will be missing.

Josh Billings
I have studied my own character, and my own impulses for 39 years closely, and I can't tell to day (to save a bet) whether I am an honest and true man or not — if there is anybody who knows about this matter I wish they would address me a letter, enclosing a postage blister.

Josh Billings
To bring up a child in the way he should go—travel that way yourself.

Josh Billings
As long as we are lucky we attribute it to our smartness; our bad luck we give the gods credit for.

Josh Billings
It is comparatively easy to repent of the sins that we have committed, but to repent of those which we intend to commit, is asking too much of any man, now days.

Josh Billings
I don't suppose there has ever lived a man without a single virtue. Even Judas Iscariot "went and hanged himself."

Josh Billings
Take all the prophecies that have come to pass, and all that have caught on the center, and failed to come to time, and make them up in an average, and yer will find, that buying stock, on the Codfish Bank of Nufoundland, at 50%, for a rise, is, in comparison, a good speculative business.

Josh Billings
There is no passion of the human heart that promises so much, and pays so little, as revenge.

Josh Billings
I don't know as I want to bet any money, and give odds, on the man, who is always anxious to pray out loud, every chance he can get.

Josh Billings
Better make a weak man your enemy than your friend.

Josh Billings
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.

Josh Billings
The time to pray is not when we are in a tight spot but just as soon as we get out of it.

Josh Billings
The great desire of my life is to amuse somebody. I had rather be able to set the multiplication table to some lively tune than to have been the author of it.

Josh Billings
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.

Josh Billings
If there is any human being that I thoroughly loath, it is the one who has nothing to boast of but his money—a mere pimp to his wealth.

Josh Billings
We admire modesty in a woman for the same reason that we admire bravery in a man.

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

Josh Billings
Men are often praised for their sagacity, but all the fore sight in the world can't tell a double-yolked egg until it is broken.

Josh Billings
I think that a hen who undertakes to lay 2 eggs a day must necessarily neglect some other branch of business.

Josh Billings
Politeness is often wasted, but it is a good and cheap mistake to make.

Josh Billings
Cunning is very apt to outwit itself. The man who turned the boat over and got under it to keep out of the rain, was one of this kind.

Josh Billings
Woman's influence is powerful, especially when she wants something.

Josh Billings
There is this difference between wit and humor: wit makes you think, humor makes you laugh.

Josh Billings
Give every one you meet, my boy, the time of day and half the road, and if that don't make him civil don't waste any more fragrance on the cuss.

Josh Billings
7 per cent haz no rest, nor no religion, it works nights, and Sundays, and even wet days.

Josh Billings
Silence is venerable; if there is anything older than the Creator, it must have been silence.

Josh Billings
I honestly beleave it iz better tew know nothing than two know what ain't so.

Josh Billings
There is no more real satisfaction, in laying up in your bosom an injury than there is in stuffing a dead hornet, who has stung you, and keeping him to look at.

Josh Billings