Josh Billings Quotes

Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise.

I've lived long enough to have learned, the closer you get to the fire, the more you get burned.

The bird alighteth not on the spread net when it beholds another bird in the snare. Take warning by the misfortunes of others, that others may not take example from you.

My errors will point to thinking men the various roads, and will teach them the great art of treading on the brink of the precipice without falling into it.

Unfortunates learn from their own mistakes, and the lucky ones learn from other's mistakes.

The wise man is seldom prudent.

The thing that I do try to convey is, don't do what I did - but ask what I asked.

You got to know your limits. Once is enough, but you got to learn. A little caution never hurt anyone. A good woodsman has only one scar on him. No more, no less.

Experience is a safe guide.

It's said that a wise person learns from his mistakes. A wiser one learns from others' mistakes. But the wisest person of all learns from others's successes.

Experience makes more timid men than it does wise ones.

There's no reason to do anything twice, and certainly no reason to do something that almost killed you.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.

[Prudence] replaces [strength] by saving the man who has the misfortune of not possessing it from most occasions when it's needed.

Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

You have to make the most responsible decisions you can with the resources you have.

I've learned people are watching, so don't do nothing stupid.

Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own.

I prefer to be alive, so I'm cautious about taking risks.

It is a good thing to learn caution from the misfortunes of others.

One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

I'm not a reckless person, in the sense that I wouldn't do something that's reckless or dangerous, because I'm a pretty careful person. For example, I don't snow ski. I did it once, and I promised God I'd never do it again if I lived through it.