Josh Billings

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

“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.”

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

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

“Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.”

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

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

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

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

“Learning sleeps and snores in libraries, but wisdom is everywhere, wide awake, on tiptoe.”

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

“In youth we run into difficulties. In old age difficulties run into us.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.”

“There is no greater evidence of superior intelligence than to be surprised at nothing.”

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

“Wisdom has never made a bigot, but learning has.”