Josh Billings

“It is a very delicate job to forgive a man, without lowering him in his own estimation, and yours too.”

“It's not only the most difficult thing to know one's self, but the most inconvenient.”

“No one can disgrace us but ourselves.”

“Advice is like castor oil, easy enough to give but dreadful uneasy to take.”

“Genius ain't anything more than elegant common sense.”

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

“Love is said to be blind, but I know some fellows in love who can see twice as much in their sweethearts as I do.”

“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 groun...”

“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.”

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

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

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

“A good way I know to find happiness, is to not bore a hole to fit the plug.”

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

“The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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