Wit and Wisdom

Josh Billings, considered by many to be our country's second greatest humorist (behind Mark Twain) is overlooked by many.

I thought I'd ring in the new year with a few favorite quotations:

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I have never known a person to live to be one hundred and be remarkable for anything else.

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

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

Life is short, but it's long enough to ruin any man who wants to be ruined.

Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.

Most people when they come to you for advice, come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corrected.

Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

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

The road to ruin is always in good repair, and the travellers pay the expense of it.

There are people who are always anticipating trouble, and in this way they manage to enjoy many sorrows that never really happen to them.

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

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

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