“I don't care how much a man talks, if he only says it in a few words.”
Filter quotes by topic
Famous Josh Billings Quotes
“Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.”
Source: Wit and Wisdom of Josh Billings [pseud.]: Choice Bits of Fun and Philosophy of the Great Humorist Carefully Collected and Revised
“Some folks as they grow older grow wise but most folks simply grow stubborner.”
“Poverty is the step-mother of genius.”
Source: Everybody's Friend, Or Josh Billing's Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor
“I am a poor man, but I have this consolation: I am poor by accident, not by design.”
Source: Uncle Sam's Uncle Josh: Or, Josh Billings on Practically Everything, Distilled from Josh's Rum and Tansy New England Wit by Donald Day
“Debt is like any other trap, easy enough to get into, but hard enough to get out of.”
Source: Wit and Wisdom of Josh Billings [pseud.]: Choice Bits of Fun and Philosophy of the Great Humorist Carefully Collected and Revised
“When I see a man of shallow understanding extravagantly clothed, I feel sorry - for the clothes.”
“There is not a whole lot of fun in medicine but there is a whole lot of medicine in fun.”
“You should always live within your income, even if you have to borrow to do so.”
“Music hath the charm to soothe a savage beast, but I'd try a revolver first.”
Source: Uncle Sam's Uncle Josh: Or, Josh Billings on Practically Everything, Distilled from Josh's Rum and Tansy New England Wit by Donald Day
“Occasions are rare; and those, who know how to seize upon them, are rarer.”
“Experience is a school where a man learns what a big fool he has been.”
“Never run into debt, not if you can find anything else to run into.”
“We are ap tu hate them, who wont take our advice, and despise them who do.”
“Better make a weak man your enemy than your friend.”
Source: Everybody's Friend, Or Josh Billing's Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor
“Advice maybe wrong, but examples prove themselves.”
Source: Everybody's Friend, Or Josh Billing's Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor
“Theory looks well on paper, but does not amount to anything without practice.”
“Beauty is a very handy thing to have, especially for a woman who ain't handsome.”
“Men mourn for what they have lost; women for what they ain't got.”
Source: Uncle Sam's Uncle Josh: Or, Josh Billings on Practically Everything, Distilled from Josh's Rum and Tansy New England Wit by Donald Day
“One of the rarest things that a man ever does, is to do the best he can.”
Source: Uncle Sam&s uncle Josh
“Human happiness konsists in having what yu want, and wanting what yu have.”
Source: Josh Billings' Wit and Humor
“If the world despises a hypocrite, what must they think of him in heaven?”
“Knowledge is like money, the more a man gits the more he hankers for.”
Source: Josh Billings' Wit and Humor
“I never knew a man troubled with melancholy, who had plenty to do, and did it.”
“I never question a success, any more than I do the right of a bulldog to lie in his own gateway.”
“The best condition in life is to be not so rich as to be envied nor so poor as to be damned.”
“Adam invented love at first sight, one of the greatest labor-saving machines the world ever saw.”
“Experience makes more timid men than it does wise ones.”
Source: Uncle Sam's Uncle Josh: Or, Josh Billings on Practically Everything, Distilled from Josh's Rum and Tansy New England Wit by Donald Day