JOSH BILLINGS' PHILOSOPHY

Kumara Times, Issue 2536, 20 October 1884, Page 3

JOSH BILLINGS' PHILOSOPHY

Nature never makes enny mistakes nor blunders. If she puts 2 krooks, or 3, into a dorg's tale, she haz got a good reazon for the lot. I don't seem to have enny lokality and I don't kno that I am mad about it, for I notiss, thoze who hav a great deal ov it, don't seem to hav a great deal ov ennything else. Genius makes its own laws, and then breaks them with impunity. Poets are like virtews : thare iz no seckond-rate ones. Experience is the phool's skoolmaster; wize men kno ov a cheaper way to git an edukashun. An elephant iz never the elephant again that he waz the fust time we saw him. Without faith we kant even prove that two and two makes four. Everyone kan make a blunder, but it takes both a wize and honest man to admit it. A lie iz the very best kompliment that kan be paid to truth. Mi dear child, don't try to reach perfecksliun. Yu kant do it if yu try, bat should yu be so lucky az to reach it, yu would looz the privilege ov ockasional repentance, an haff the plezzure ov this life. I had rather dig for klams enny time than dig for fame. A moderate bank ackount will keep a man out ov the poor house, when enny amount of fame wont. The devill alwuss walks around a fcizzy man three times before he taps

him on the shoulder, and often goes off without tapping him at all. I will not knowingly dip mi pen in gall nor Verdi-grease; what I write shall be kind and pure, if it aintso wize nor phunny. Our best thoughts are born at the head and baptized at the heart. Perhaps there iz no keener sarkasm than a wize man listening earnestly to a phool. Energy and kapacity combined kan diakount all the bad luk and all the good luk thare iz in the world. Woman's virtews are all her own, her vices man haz taught her. All truth iz inspirashun, and the divinity ov the Bible iz the inspirashun that iz in it. Perseverance will conker ennything but an impossibility, and it will giv even that a very kluss run. The heathen are satisfied with the bare necessity ov life, and that is the principal thing that haz made them heathen, and will allwass keep them so. A majority iz no posative evidence ov strength ; if the majority were geese and the minority foxes, I should bet on the minority every time. Mi dear phellow, if yu expekt to sit on the top round of the ladder, yu hav got to klime; not one in four millyuns have ever got thare on wings.