Josh Billings (1818–85,) pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw, was an American humorist. His philosophical remarks, published as newspaper articles, books, and comic lectures, were widely popular after the Civil War, perhaps second only to Mark Twain. Shaw’s reputation has not endured so well with later generations.
Born in Lanesboro, Massachusetts, Shaw tried various livelihoods before becoming an auctioneer and a land agent in Poughkeepsie, New York. At age forty-five, he started contributing humorous columns to a local newspaper under the name “Josh Billings.” They didn’t appeal until he altered his style and began using phonetic spelling to signify a rural dialect. He changed an article he had written as “Essay on the Mule” to “A Essa on the Meul bi Josh Billings”—this was printed in a New York City newspaper and made him instantaneously well known.
A popular newspaper columnist, Shaw published lighthearted almanacs and collections of wisecracks. He relied heavily on purposeful misspelling, fractured grammar, malapropisms, futile logic, and anticlimax. This technique was widespread among contemporaneous comic writers who assumed the role of “cracker-barrel philosophers.”
Shaw’s popular books included Josh Billings, His Sayings (1866,) Josh Billings on Ice (1868,) Josh Billings’ Farmers’ Allminax (1870,) Everybody’s Friend (1874,) Josh Billings’ Trump Kards (1877,) Old Probability: Perhaps Rain—Perhaps Not (1879,) and Josh Billings Struggling with Things (1881.)
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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.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
Most people repent their sins by thanking God they ain’t so wicked as their neighbors.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
Topics: Forgiveness
Money will buy you a pretty good dog, but it won’t buy the wag of his tail.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
It is the little bits of things that fret and worry us; we can dodge a elephant, but we can’t dodge a fly.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
Topics: Worry
Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist: it reduces him to his fighting weight.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
Topics: Blessings, Silver Linings, Adversity
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
Topics: Dogs, Animals
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.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt of, not swallowed.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
Topics: Flattery
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