Josh Billings Quotes

175 Sourced Quotes

If we give up our minds to little things we never shall be fit for big ones. I knew a man once who could catch more flies with one swoop of his hand than anybody else could, and he wasn't good at anything else.

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

The wealth ov a person should be estimated, not bi the amount he haz, but bi the use he makes ov it.

Josh Billings

Debt is like any other trap, easy enough to get into, but hard enough to get out of.

Josh Billings

I don't know as it is a very difficult thing to be a good Indian up in heaven, but to come down here and be a good Indian, is just where the tight spot comes in.

Josh Billings

The cheapest and best way to convince a fool, is to agree with him.

Josh Billings

It is better to look wise, than to talk foolish.

Josh Billings

Every man has a perfect right to his opinion, provided it agrees with ours.

Josh Billings

There is no such thing as being proud before man and humble before God.

Josh Billings

Our continual desire for praise ought to satisfy us of our mortality, if nothing else will.

Josh Billings

People of good sense are those whose opinions agree with ours.

Josh Billings

The hornet is an inflammable bugger, sudden in his impressions and hasty in his conclusion, or end. His natural disposition is a warm cross between red pepper in the pod and fusel oil and his moral bias is, "Get out of my way."

Josh Billings

It's a wise man who profits by his own experience, but it's a good deal wiser one who lets the rattlesnake bite the other fellow.

Josh Billings

Friendship is like earthenware, once broken, it can be mended; love is like a mirror, once broken that ends it.

Josh Billings

Opinions should be formed with great caution, and changed with greater.

Josh Billings

A good reliable set of bowels is worth more to a man than any quantity of brains.

Josh Billings

The truly innocent are those who not only are guiltless themselves but who think others are.

Josh Billings

Show me a thoroughly contented person, and I will show you a useless one.

Josh Billings

Marrying a woman for her money is very much like setting a rat-trap, and baiting it with your own finger.

Josh Billings

It iz comparitively eazy tew repent ov the sins that we hav committed, but tew repent ov thoze which we intend to commit, is asking tew mutch ov enny man, now days.

Josh Billings

Habits are like the wrinkles on a man's brow; if you will smooth out the one, I will smooth out the other.

Josh Billings

A learned fool is one who has read everything and simply remembered it.

Josh Billings

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

Josh Billings

If a man is right, he can't be too radical; if he is wrong, he can't be too conservative.

Josh Billings

We mingle in society not so much to meet others as to escape ourselves.

Josh Billings

Josh Billings

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)

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Josh Billings on Wikipedia

Josh Billings works on Gutenberg Project

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