Josh Billings

Live within your income, even if you have to borrow money to do so.

— Josh Billings

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

— Josh Billings

Ambition is like hunger; it obeys no law but its appetite

— Josh Billings

I never knew a man troubled with melancholy, who had plenty to do, and did it.

— Josh Billings

Unless we put heart and soul into our labor we but brutify our actions.

— Josh Billings

Tears are a good alterative, but a poor diet.

— Josh Billings

Metaphysics is the science of proving what we don't understand.

— Josh Billings

Pyrotechnically considered, [laughing] is the fire-works of the soul.

— Josh Billings

Love iz like the meazles; we kant have it bad but onst, and the later in life we have it the tuffer…

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

Marrying a woman for her money is very much like setting a rat-trap, and baiting it with your own finger.

— Josh Billings

Love is like the measles; we can't have it bad but once, and the later in life we have it the tougher…

— Josh Billings

Words are often seen hunting for an idea, but ideas are never seen hunting for words.

— Josh Billings

There are only two qualities in the world: efficiency and inefficiency; and only two sorts of people: the efficient and the inefficient.

— Josh Billings

Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain't lawful tender for a loaf…

— Josh Billings

Selfish people, with no heart to speak of, have the best time of it.

— Josh Billings

I've never known an auctioneer to lie unless it was absolutely necessary.

— Josh Billings

Satire that is seasonable and just is often more effectual than law or gospel.

— Josh Billings

One legged chickens, I know, are the least apt to scratch a garden.

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

Rumor is a vagrant without a home, and lives upon what it can pick up.

— Josh Billings

Fashion makes fools of some, sinners of others, and slaves of all.

— Josh Billings

Knowledge is like money: the more one gets, the more one craves.

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

Pity costs nothing, and it ain't worth nothing.

— Josh Billings

When the truth is in your way, you are on the wrong road.

— Josh Billings

The unfortunate do not pity the unfortunate.

— Josh Billings

Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.

— Josh Billings

Pity cost nothing and ain't worth nothing.

— Josh Billings

It ain't often that a man's reputation outlasts his money.

— Josh Billings

It is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.

— Josh Billings

Advice is like castor oil — easy enough to give but dreadful hard to take.

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

Genius ain't anything more than elegant common sense.

— Josh Billings

Ill-nature is a sort of running sore of the disposition.

— Josh Billings

Show me a thoroughly contented person, and I will show you a useless one.

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

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

— Josh Billings

Virtue does not consist in the absence of the passions, but in the control of them.

— Josh Billings