Josh Billings
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.Collection: Baths
The nearest we can come to) perfect happiness is to cheat ourselves with the belief that we have got it.Collection: Happiness
It is easier to be virtuous than it is to appear so, and it pays better.Collection: Pay
Never teach your child to be cunning or you may be certain you will be one of the very first victims of his shrewdness.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Happiness
I am a poor man, but I have this consolation: I am poor by accident, not by design.Collection: Men
When a young man begins to go down hill everything seems to be greased for the occasion.Collection: Funny
I never had a man come to me for advice yet, but what I soon discovered that he thought more of his own opinion than he did of mine.Collection: Men
Silence never makes any blunders.Collection: Silence
Life is like a mountain: after climbing up one side and sliding down the other, put up the sled.Collection: Climbing
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.Collection: Spring
Don't mistake pleasure for happiness. They are a different breed of dogs.Collection: Happiness
It is a great art to be superior to others without letting them know it.Collection: Art
Wisdom deprives even poverty of half its power.Collection: Wisdom
Opinions should be formed with great caution, and changed with greater.Collection: Opinion
Music hath the charm to soothe a savage beast, but I'd try a revolver first.Collection: Funny
To enjoy a good reputation, give publicly, and steal privately.Collection: Character
Silence is one of the hardest kind of arguments to refute. There is no good substitute for wisdom; but silence is the best that has yet been discovered.Collection: Silence
Admiration is a youthful fancy will which scarcely ever survives to mature years.Collection: Years
Experience is a school where a man learns what a big fool he has been.Collection: School
Friendship is like earthenware, once broken, it can be mended; love is like a mirror, once broken that ends it.Collection: Love Is
Experience makes more timid men than it does wise ones.Collection: Wise
Silence is a still noise.Collection: Silence
Where religion is a trade, morality is a merchandise.Collection: Religion
I never knew a man troubled with melancholy, who had plenty to do, and did it.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Running
Men of genius are like eagles, they live on what they kill, while men of talents are like crows, they live on what has been killed for them.Collection: Men
Rumor is like bees; the more you fight them the more you don't get rid of them.Collection: Fighting
The unfortunate do not pity the unfortunate.Collection: Pity
Never work before breakfast; if you have to work before breakfast, eat your breakfast first.Collection: Good Morning
If you would make yourself agreeable wherever you go, listen to the grievances of others but never relate your own.Collection: Grievance
Marrying a woman for her money is very much like setting a rat-trap, and baiting it with your own finger.Collection: Rats
Ambition is like hunger; it obeys no law but its appetiteCollection: Ambition
Men who have much to say use the fewest words.Collection: Men
Laughter is the fireworks of the soul.Collection: Funny
The great art of writing is knowing when to stop.Collection: Art
Politeness is better than logic. You can often persuade when you cannot convince.Collection: Logic
There is not a whole lot of fun in medicine but there is a whole lot of medicine in fun.Collection: Fun
Caution, though very often wasted is a good risk to take.Collection: Risk
The devil is the father of lies, but he neglected to patent the idea, and the business now suffers from competition.Collection: Lying
True wisdom is plenty of experience, observation, and reflection. False wisdom is plenty of ignorance, arrogance, and impudence.Collection: Ignorance
A learned fool is one who has read everything and simply remembered it.Collection: Fool
Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Humble
Virtue does not consist in the absence of the passions, but in the control of them.Collection: Passion
Advice maybe wrong, but examples prove themselves.Collection: Advice
Clothes form the intellect of the dandy.Collection: Clothes
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.Collection: Honesty
Despatch is taking time by the ears; hurry is taking it by the end of the tail.Collection: Tails