JOSH BILLINGS

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

The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so.

The man whose only pleasure in life is making money, weighs less on the moral scale than an angleworm.

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

One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done.

There are some people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the truth without lying.

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.

Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.

Wisdom has never made a bigot, but learning has.

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

There are two things in life for which we are never truly prepared: twins.

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.

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

Economy is a savings-bank, into which men drop pennies, and get dollars in return.

Man was created a little lower than the angels and has been getting a little lower ever since.

If a man should happen to reach perfection in this world, he would have to die immediately to enjoy himself.

A puppy plays with every pup he meets, but an old dog has few associates.

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 ground in a squash.

There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.

It ain't often that a man's reputation outlasts his money.

Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist: it reduces him to his fighting weight.

Old maids sweeten their tea with scandal.

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

I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second time into things that I am most certain of the first time.