Josh Billings - Man Quotes

46 Sourced Quotes

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

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
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 hardest thing that any man can do is to fall down on the ice when it is wet, and get up and praise the Lord.

Josh Billings
The man who pitys everyboddy, wants watching, for the chances are that he iz gitting phatt slily on other peoples misfortunes.

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
The man who can wear a paper collar a hole week and keep, it clean, ain't fit for any thing else.

Josh Billings
A man's reputation is something like his coat, there is certain chemicals that will take the stains and grease spots out of it, but it always has a second-handed kind of a look, and generally smells strong of the chemicals.

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
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
Better make a weak man your enemy than your friend.

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

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

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

Josh Billings
I don't believe in bad luck being set for a man, like a trap, but i have known lots of folks, who if there was any first rate bad luck lying around loose, would be sure to get one foot in it anyhow.

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

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

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

Josh Billings
Marrying for beauty is a poor speculation, for any man who sees your wife, has got just about as much stock in her as you have.

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
Young man, don't grind your scythe all on one side!

Josh Billings
Ventilation is a good thing, but when a man can't lay down and sleep in a 10 acre lot without taking down two lengths of fence to let the wind in he is altogether too airish.

Josh Billings
Confess your sins to the Lord and you will be forgiven; confess them to man and you will be laughed at.

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

Josh Billings