Josh Billings

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

“A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself.”

“The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way.”

“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.”

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

“As a general thing, when a woman wears the pants in a family, she has a good right to them.”

“There's a lot of people in this world who spend so much time watching their health that they haven't the time to enjoy it.”

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

“Laughter is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one place.”

“Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.”

“About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.”

“Knowledge is like money: the more he gets, the more he craves.”

“Money will buy a pretty good dog, but it won't buy the wag of his tail.”

“To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.”

“I think when the full horror of being fifty hits you, you should stay home and have a good cry.”

“The best time for you to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust.”

“One of the best temporary cures for pride and affectation is seasickness a man who wants to vomit never puts on airs.”

“The best medicine I know for rheumatism is to thank the Lord that it ain't gout.”

“There are two kinds of fools: those who can't change their opinions and those who won't.”

“There is nothing so easy to learn as experience and nothing so hard to apply.”

“If there was no faith there would be no living in this world. We could not even eat hash with any safety.”

“The thinner the ice, the more anxious is everyone to see whether it will bear.”

“There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory.”

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