Josh Billings (1818 – 1885)
Better known by his pen name Josh Billings, was an American humorist.
Poverty is the stepmother of genius.
7 per cent haz no rest, nor no religion, it works nights, and Sundays, and even wet days.
Love haz a most vorashus appetight, but a poor digestion, what it feeds on most alwus distresses it. Prudes, are coquets, gone to seed. It iz our duty tew pray for them who revile and persekute us, but i dont kno az we are obliged tew let them kno it.
I am poor, and I am glad that i am, for i find that wealth makes more people mean than it duz generous.
The man who kan ware a paper collar a hole week and keap, it klean, aint fit for enny thing else.
Thare are but dredful phew people who kan talk ten minnits tew yu without lugging into the conversashun their bak or stummuk akes.
Pedantry iz the science ov investing what little yu know in one kind ov perfumery, and insisting upon sticking that under every man's knose whom you meet.
The lion and the lamb may, possibly, sumtime lay down in this world together for a fu minnits, but when the lion kums tew git up, the lamb will be missing.
If we giv up our minds tew little things we never shall be fit for big ones. I knew a man once who could ketch more flies with one swoop ov his hand than enny boddy else could, and he want good at ennything else.
About one haff the pitty in this world iz not the result ov sorrow, but satisfackshun that it aint our hoss that haz had hiz leg broke.
I had rather be a pot-bellied seed cowcumber, flung carelessly on a wood pile to ripen, than tew be an old bachelor.
The wealth ov a person should be estimated, not bi the amount he haz, but bi the use he makes ov it.
Politeness iz often wasted, but it iz a good and cheap mistake tew make.
We are happy in this world just in proporshun as we make others happy--i stand reddy tew bet 50 dollars on this saying.
I kno plenty ov folks who are so kondem kontrary, that if they should fall into the river, they would insist uopon floating up stream.
I never hav seen a bigot yet but what had a small and apparently braneless hed--bit i hain't seen all the bigots, yu know.
Nature never makes blunders; when she makes a fool she means it.
When a doktor looks me square in the face and kant see no money in me, then i am happy.
I don't beleaf in bad luck being sot for a man, like a trap, but i hav known lots ov folks, who if thare waz enny fust rate bad luck lieing around loose, would be sure tew git one foot in it enny how.
Thare iz this mutch kan be sed in favour ov good-breeding, it iz the only thing that kan make a phool endurable.