Top 346 Quotes & Sayings by Josh Billings - Page 5

Human happiness konsists in having what yu want, and wanting what yu have.

I am a poor man, but I have this consolation: I am poor by accident, not by design.

There is a significant Latin proverb; to wit: Who will guard the guards?

Dangers are sum like a kold bath, very dangerous while you stand stripped on the bank, but often not only harmless, but invigorating, if you pitch into them.

He whom prosperity humbles, and adversity strengthens, is the true hero.

What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul I suppose this depends somewhat upon the size of the soul. I think there are cases where the trade would do.

Contentment is a kind of moral laziness; if there wasn't anything but contentment in his world, man wouldn't be any more of a success than an angleworm is

If animals had reason, they would act just as ridiculous as we menfolks do.

Peace is the soft and holy shadow that virtue casts.

Admiration is a youthful fancy will which scarcely ever survives to mature years.

To enjoy a good reputation, give publicly, and steal privately.

Hunting after happiness is like hunting after a lost sheep in the wilderness--when you find it, the chances are that it is a skeleton.

The secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing.

Men are seldom underrated; the mercury in a man finds its true level in the eyes of the world just as certainly as it does in the glass of a thermometer.

Experience increases our wisdom but doesn't reduce our follies.

Pedigrees seldom improve by age; the grandson is too often a weak infringement on the grandsire's parent.

Keep a cow, and then the milk won't have to be watered but once.

We have some writers so abstruse and deep that they drown themselves in their fathomless sentences.

When good-natured people leave us we look forward with extra pleasure to their return.

The less we know the more we suspect

It's not so hard to get rich as it is to know when you have gotten rich.

Never teach your child to be cunning or you may be certain you will be one of the very first victims of his shrewdness.

the squeeky wheel gets the grease.

Sekts and creeds ov religion, are like pocket compesses, good enuff tu pinte out the direction, but the nearer the pole yu git thewuss tha wurk.

It ain't because lovers are so sensitive that they quarrel so often; it is because there is so much fun n the making up.

Zoroaster said, when in doubt abstain; but this does not always apply. At cards, when in doubt take the trick.

Despatch is taking time by the ears; hurry is taking it by the end of the tail.

Advice maybe wrong, but examples prove themselves.

There never yet was a mother who taught her child to be an infidel.

Life is like a mountain: after climbing up one side and sliding down the other, put up the sled.

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.

There are very few good judges of humor, and they don't agree.

If mankind were only just what they pretend to be, the problem of the millennium would be immediately solved.

The best condition in life is to be not so rich as to be envied nor so poor as to be damned.

Genuine laughing is the vent of the soul, the nostrils of the heart, and just as necessary for health and happiness as spring water is for a trout.

...But why discourse Upon the Virtues of the Horse? They are too numerous to tell Save when you have a Horse to Sell.

When a young man begins to go down hill everything seems to be greased for the occasion.

The hardest thing any man can do is to fall down on the ice when it's slippery, and get up and praise the Lord.

Most men had rather say a smart thing than do a good one. John P. Kotter, Leading Change.

Morally considered, laughter is next to the Ten Commandments.

Poverty is one of them kind of misfortunes that we all of us dread but none of us pity.

It ain't no disgrace for a man to fall, but to lie there and grunt is.

Faith is the soul riding at anchor.

The highest philosophers, in explaining the mystery of this world, are obliged to call in the aid of another.

Taking from others never results in prosperity. If we steal from others, life will steal from us. There is an incredible abundance on this planet. True prosperity begins with feeling good about yourself and about the choices you make. Life is here for us. Life is here to support us in every way. We give out, we get back. 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.

It AIN'T so much the things we don't know that get us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain't so.

Theres not a lot of good humor in medicine, but theres a lot of medicine in good humor.

Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just, But four times he who gets his blow in fust

Waves are inspiring not because they rise and fail, but because each time they fall. They never fail to rise again.

Beauty is a very handy thing to have, especially for a woman who ain't handsome.

We should make virtue our master, not our servant.

Advice is like kissing: it costs nothing and is a pleasant thing to do.

The morning paper is just as necessary for an American as dew is to the grass.

If the world despises a hypocrite, what must they think of him in heaven?

A man running for office puts me in mind of a dog that's lost-he smells everybody he meets, and wags himself all over.

There's tons of people that spend a lot time watching their well being, they have not acquired time to take pleasure in it.

Theory looks well on paper, but does not amount to anything without practice.

When a man gets talking about himself, he seldom fails to be eloquent and often reaches the sublime.

If you believe you can do something, then you can acquire the ability to do it even if you didn't have it in the beginning.

When you do laugh, open your mouth wide enough for the noise to get out without squealing, throw your head back as though you were going to be shaved, hold on to your false hair with both hands and then laugh till your soul gets thoroughly rested.