Josh Billings
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Josh Billings, American humorist
Josh Billings was the pen name of humorist born Henry Wheeler Shaw (12 April 1818 - 14 October 1885). He was perhaps the second most famous humor writer and lecturer in the United States in the 2nd half of the 19th century after Mark Twain, although his reputation has not fared so well with later generations.
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Sourced
- The wheel that squeaks the loudest
Is the one that gets the grease.- The Kicker
- It is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.
- Proverb (1874)
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Affurisms. From Josh Billings: His Sayings (1865)
- A secret ceases to be a secret it it is once confided—it is like a dollar bill, once broken, it is never a dollar again.
- 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.
- Put an Englishman into the garden of Eden, and he would find fault with the whole blasted concern; put a Yankee in, and he would see where he could alter it to advantage; put an Irishman in, and he would want to boss the thing; put a Dutchman in, and he would proceed to plant it.
- Better make a weak man your enemy than your friend.
- Nature never makes blunders; when she makes a fool she means it.
- I don't care how much a man talks, if he only says it in a few words.
- As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.
- Poverty is the stepmother of genius.
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Attributed
- A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself.
- As a general rule, if you want to get at the truth — hear both sides and believe neither.
- As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.
- Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.
- Beauty is a very handy thing to have, especially for a woman who ain't handsome.
- Confess your sins to the Lord and you will be forgiven; confess them to man and you will be laughed at.
- Don't despise your poor relations, they may become suddenly rich one day.
- Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt of, not swallowed.
- Health is like money, we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it.
- I have finally come to the conclusion that a good reliable set of bowels is worth more to a man than any quantity of brains.
- 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.
- In youth we run into difficulties, in old age, difficulties run into us.
- It ain't what a man don't know that makes him a fool; it's the things he does know, that ain't so.
- Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.
- Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.
- Life is a grindstone, and whether it grinds a man down or polishes him up depends on what he is made of.
- Life is short, but it's long enough to ruin any man who wants to be ruined.
- Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.
- Marrying for love may be a bit risky, but it is so honest that God can't help but smile on it.
- Old maids sweeten their tea with scandal.
- Remember the poor, it costs nothing.
- Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
- The man whose only pleasure in life is making money, weighs less on the moral scale than an angleworm.
- The thinner the ice, the more anxious is everyone to see whether it will bear.
- There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.
- There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together.
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External links
de:Josh Billings
