Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1877 — Josh Billings’ Wisdom. [ARTICLE]

Josh Billings’ Wisdom.

Ip I ever offer to swap places with any man in this world, it will be with the one who can eat anything and not have the nightmare. I like to see all things true to Nature, a hornet that can’t sting is a melancholy failure. Ebenezer my boy, don’t forget this, a good listener will please more people than a good talker will. Most people would rather believe what, is not so than confess their ignorance. A certain amount of pride is very proper, a peacock without any pride at all would be a dead loss. Cunning never won a lasting victory yet. How many people there are in this world wh? have just brains enough tod6ubt,and to differ, but not enough to decide. When anybody wants to sell then is the time to buy, and when anybody wants to buy, then is the time to sell. It requires-great stamina of character to be a successful fool. If we would increase in wisdom, we have got to forget a large share of what we think we know.

There is one thing that even old age can’t cheat us om ot, and that b memory pf a good action. The great blessing of adversity is, it gives our enemies a chance to pitch into us and our friends a chance to defend us. The best time to -ask advice of your neighbors is after yqu have made up your mind just what you are going to do. There may be some perfectly happy people in tub world, out they cannot prove it. It is actually easier to earn two dollars and a half than to take care of one after you have earned it. An illustrious pedigree is a risky possession, the world won’t compare you with yourself, but are all the time comparing you with die skeleton of your grandfather. He who can control his anger gains two victories, one over himself and the other over his opponent. One of the moat difficult things for an author to understand is, that a well-written paragraph will outshine and outlast a poorly-written hook. The man who writes a bad book is worse than the one who poisons • a spring, the spring will run itself pure in time, but the book festers and corrupts for all tinr.e.— N. Y. Weekly.