Quotes from Josh Billings

There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together.

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.

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.

After enlightenment, the laundry.

Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius.

Don't mistake pleasure for happiness. They are a different breed of dogs.

Don't put off till tomorrow what can be enjoyed today.

Don't take the bull by the horns, take him by the tail then you can let go when you want to.

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

Experience is a school where a man learns what a big fool he has been.

Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt of, not swallowed.

Good nonsense is good sense in disguise.

Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.

Like other occult techniques of divination, the statistical method has a private jargon deliberately contrived to obscure its methods from non-practitioners.

Marrying for love may be a bit risky, but it is so honest that God can't help but smile on it.

My son, observe the postage stamp! Its usefulness depends upon its ability to stick to one thing until it gets there.

No one can disgrace us but ourselves.

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

Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.

Some folks as they grow older grow wise, but most folks simply grow stubborner.

The fools in this world make about as much trouble as the wicked do.

The happiest time in a man's life is when he is in the red hot pursuit of a dollar with a reasonable prospect of overtaking it.

The miser and the glutton are two facetious buzzards: one hides his store, and the other stores his hide.

The more humble a man is before God the more he will be exalted; the more humble he is before man, the more he will get rode roughshod.