Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Josh Billings

 
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Josh Billings
Billings, Josh, pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw, 1818-85, American humorist and lecturer, b. Lanesboro, Mass. After a roving life as farmer, explorer, and coal miner, he settled in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., as an auctioneer and real estate dealer. In 1860 he began to write humorous sketches and homespun philosophies in rural dialect and soon became a popular lecturer. His first collection was Josh Billings: His Sayings (1869), but his best humor was published in his annual Farmer's Allminax (1869-80).

Bibliography

See study by D. B. Kesterson (1974).

Search unanswered questions...
Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics
Dictionary: Shaw, Henry Wheeler   (bĭl'ĭngz) pronunciation) 1818-1885.
Top
(Pen name Josh Bil·lings
American humorist noted for his essays on rural life, characterized by intentional misspellings and published annually in the Farmers' Allminax (1869-1880).


Works: Works by Henry Wheeler Shaw
Top
(1818-1885)

1865Josh Billings, His Sayings. The Massachusetts-born humorist issues his first book as the Yankee cracker-barrel philosopher "Josh Billings," whose philosophical comments feature misspellings and malapropisms. From 1869 to 1880, he would issue an annual Allminax, and his other popular collections include Josh Billings on Ice and Other Things (1868), Everybody's Friend (1874), Josh Billings' Trump Kards (1877), Old Probability (1879), Josh Billings Struggling with Things (1881), and Josh Billings, His Works Complete (1888).

Quotes By: Josh Billings
Top

Quotes:

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

"Advice is like castor oil, easy to give, but dreadful to take."

"In youth we run into difficulties. In old age difficulties run into us."

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

"Never run into debt, not if you can find anything else to run into."

"Always live within your income, even if you have to borrow money to do so."

See more famous quotes by Josh Billings

Wikipedia: Josh Billings
Top
Humorist and lecturer Josh Billings

Josh Billings was the pen name of humorist born Henry Wheeler Shaw (20 April 1818 – 14 October 1885). He was perhaps the second most famous humor writer and lecturer in the United States in the second half of the 19th century after Mark Twain, although his reputation has not fared so well with later generations.

Shaw was born in Lanesborough, Massachusetts, and worked as a farmer, coal miner, explorer, and auctioneer before he began making a living as a journalist and writer in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1858. Under the pseudonym "Josh Billings" he wrote in an informal voice full of the slang of the day, with often eccentric phonetic spelling, dispensing wit and folksy common-sense wisdom. His books include Farmers' Allminax, Josh Billings' Sayings, Everybody's Friend, Choice Bits of American Wit and Josh Billings' Trump Kards.

His quote "In the whole history of the world there is but one thing that money can not buy... to wit the wag of a dog's tail" appears at the beginning of the Disney film Lady and the Tramp.[1]

He toured, giving lectures of his writings, which were very popular with the audiences of the day.

Billings died in Monterey, California.

Attributed quotations

While the Squeaky Wheel analysis was used in different forms before Billings, his poem, "The Kicker" brought the idiom into common usage of American language. The term "kicker" at the time in the 1800s was another term for a complainer. The poem is:

I hate to be a kicker,
I always long for peace,
But the wheel that does the squeaking,
Is the one that gets the grease.
  • A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.
  • About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.
  • As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.
  • Don't take the bull by the horns, take him by the tail; then you can let go when you want to.
  • Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt of, not swallowed.
  • Health is like money, we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it.
  • It is much easier to repent of sins that we have committed than to repent of those we intend to commit.
  • It's not ignorance does so much damage; it's knowin' so derned much that ain't so.
  • Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.
  • Genius ain’t nothing more than elegant common sense
  • One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.
  • 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 time to pray is not when we are in a tight spot but just as soon as we get out of it.
  • There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.
  • Man is my brother, and I am nearer related to him through his vices than I am through his virtue.
  • Friendship is liken earthenware, once broken it can be mended. Love is like a mirror, once broken that ends it.
  • Occasions are rare; and those who know how to seize upon them are rarer.
  • It strains a man's philosophy the worst kind to laugh when he gets beat.
  • Don't have any more secrets than you can keep yourself.
  • That, men of genius are like eagles, they live on what they kill, while men of talents are like crows, they live on what has been killed for them.
  • Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.
  • One legged chickens, I know, are the least apt to scratch a garden.
  • I have finally come to the conclusion that a good set of bowels is worth more to a man than any quantity of brains.
  • Tred litely, deer reeder, for the way iz ruff.
  • Man was kreated a little lower than the angells and has been gittin a little lower ever sinse.
  • Marrying a woman for her munny is vera mutch like setting a rat-trap, and baiting it with yure own finger.
  • I wud as soon take a ten dollar kounterfit bill on the Kodfish Bank ov Nufoundland, as tu marry a woman with false hare, false teeth or a false buzzum.
  • There may come a time when the lion and the lamb will lie down together, but I am still betting on the lion.
  • Never work before breakfast; if you have to work before breakfast, eat your breakfast first.

References

  1. ^ Lady and the Tramp, Disney, 1955.

Billings, Josh. Choice Bits of American Wit. Diprose, Bateman & Co.. 

External links


 
 
Learn More
Billings, Josh
squeaky wheel gets the grease (Idiom)
Josh Billings (disambiguation)

Who is the father of Josh from 'Drake and Josh'? Read answer...
How old is josh in drake and josh? Read answer...
How old is josh in drak and josh? Read answer...

Help us answer these
Who is Josh Perron?
Who is josh MONROE?
Who is josh pearce?

Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:

 

Copyrights:

Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more
Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Works. The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Quotes By. Copyright © 2008 QuotationsBook.com. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Josh Billings" Read more