Josh Billings Quotes
"Confess your sins to the Lord and you will be forgiven; confess them to man and you will be laughed at."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Man, Will)
"Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Common sense)
"Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Genius, Common sense, Instinct)
"Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there."
- Josh Billings
"Be kind to your mother-in-law, but pay for her board at some good hotel."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Mother)
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Truth, Excess)
"As a general thing, when a woman wears the pants in a family, she has a good right to them."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Family, Right, Woman)
"Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist: it reduces him to his fighting weight."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Adversity, Effect, Fighting, Man, Training, Weight)
"About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Hope, Judgment, Originality, Writer)
"A puppy plays with every pup he meets, but an old dog has few associates."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Old)
"A good way I know to find happiness, is to not bore a hole to fit the plug."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Happiness)
"A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Love, Earth)
"Every man has his follies - and often they are the most interesting thing he has got."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Man)
"Advice is like castor oil, easy enough to give but dreadful uneasy to take."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Advice, Oil)
"The best medicine I know for rheumatism is to thank the Lord that it ain't gout."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Medicine)
"The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease."
- Josh Billings
"The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so."
- Josh Billings
(Related: People, Trouble)
"The thinner the ice, the more anxious is everyone to see whether it will bear."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Will)
"Don't ever prophesy; for if you prophesy wrong, nobody will forget it; and if you prophesy right, nobody will remember it."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Forget, Right, Will, Wrong)
"The man whose only pleasure in life is making money, weighs less on the moral scale than an angleworm."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Life, Money, Man, Pleasure)
"One of the best temporary cures for pride and affectation is seasickness; a man who wants to vomit never puts on airs."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Affectation, Man, Pride)
"The best time for you to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Time, Tongue)
"There are some people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the truth without lying."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Truth, People, Exaggeration, Lying)
"Take all the fools out of this world and there wouldn't be any fun living in it, or profit."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Fools, Fun, Living, Profit, World)
"Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Arguments, Silence)
"Remember the poor, it costs nothing."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Nothing, Poor)
"Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Conscience, Mistakes, Reason)
"One of the rarest things that a man ever does, is to do the best he can."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Man)
"One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Gain, Politeness)
"Economy is a savings-bank, into which men drop pennies, and get dollars in return."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Men, Economy)
"There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Power, Words)
"Words are often seen hunting for an idea, but ideas are never seen hunting for words."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Idea, Ideas, Hunting, Words)
"Woman's influence is powerful, especially when she wants something."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Influence, Woman)
"Wisdom has never made a bigot, but learning has."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Wisdom, Learning)
"When a man comes to me for advice, I find out the kind of advice he wants, and I give it to him."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Advice, Man)
"To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Travel)
"Time is like money, the less we have of it to spare the further we make it go."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Time, Money)
"There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Imagination, Mistake, People, Memory)
"There's a lot of people in this world who spend so much time watching their health that they haven't the time to enjoy it."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Health, Time, People, World)
"There are people who are always anticipating trouble, and in this way they manage to enjoy many sorrows that never really happen to them."
- Josh Billings
(Related: People, Trouble)
"There is nothing so easy to learn as experience and nothing so hard to apply."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Experience, Nothing)
"There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Forgiveness, Revenge)
"There is no greater evidence of superior intelligence than to be surprised at nothing."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Intelligence, Nothing)
"There are two things in life for which we are never truly prepared: twins."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Life, Twins)
"There are two kinds of fools: those who can't change their opinions and those who won't."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Change, Opinions)
"The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Fool, Wrong)
"Threescore years and ten is enough; if a man can't suffer all the misery he wants in that time, he must be numb."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Time, Man, Misery, Years)
"I think when the full horror of being fifty hits you, you should stay home and have a good cry."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Home, Being, Horror)
"It is much easier to repent of sins that we have committed than to repent of those that we intend to commit."
- Josh Billings
"It is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Nothing)
"It is a very delicate job to forgive a man, without lowering him in his own estimation, and yours too."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Job, Man)
"It ain't often that a man's reputation outlasts his money."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Money, Man, Reputation)
"If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it, as the old woman did her lost spectacles, safe on her own nose all the time."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Happiness, Time, Hunting, Old, Will, Woman)
"It is not all bad, this getting old, ripening. After the fruit has got its growth it should juice up and mellow. God forbid I should live long enough to ferment and rot and fall to the ground in a squash."
- Josh Billings
(Related: God, Growth, Old)
"If a man should happen to reach perfection in this world, he would have to die immediately to enjoy himself."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Man, Perfection, World)
"I have never known a person to live to be one hundred and be remarkable for anything else."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Remarkable)
"I haven't got as much money as some folks, but I've got as much impudence as any of them, and that's the next thing to money."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Money)
"Old maids sweeten their tea with scandal."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Old, Scandal, Tea)
"I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second time into things that I am most certain of the first time."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Time, First, World)
"The road to ruin is always in good repair, and the travellers pay the expense of it."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Road, Ruin)
"Genius ain't anything more than elegant common sense."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Genius, Common sense)
"Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt, not swallowed."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Flattery, Water)
"If there was no faith there would be no living in this world. We could not even eat hash with any safety."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Faith, Living, Safety, World)
"Man was created a little lower than the angels and has been getting a little lower ever since."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Angels, Man)
"Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain't lawful tender for a loaf of bread."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Honesty, Wealth, World)
"No one can disgrace us but ourselves."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Disgrace)
"Most people when they come to you for advice, come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corrected."
- Josh Billings
(Related: People, Advice, Opinions)
"Most people repent their sins by thanking God they ain't so wicked as their neighbors."
- Josh Billings
(Related: God, People, Neighbors)
"Money will buy a pretty good dog, but it won't buy the wag of his tail."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Money, Pretty, Will)
"It's not only the most difficult thing to know one's self, but the most inconvenient."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Self)
"Marrying for love may be a bit risky, but it is so honest that God can't help but smile on it."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Love, God, Help, May, Smile)
"Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Love, Envy)
"Love is said to be blind, but I know some fellows in love who can see twice as much in their sweethearts as I do."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Love, Blind)
"Life is short, but it's long enough to ruin any man who wants to be ruined."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Life, Man, Ruin)
"Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Life, Cards)
"Learning sleeps and snores in libraries, but wisdom is everywhere, wide awake, on tiptoe."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Wisdom, Learning, Libraries)
"Laughter is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one place."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Feeling, Laughter)
"Knowledge is like money: the more he gets, the more he craves."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Knowledge)
"Men mourn for what they have lost; women for what they ain't got."
- Josh Billings
(Related: Men, Women)