Everybody's Friend, or Josh Billing's Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874 edition. Excerpt: ...amount of cerimony seems tew be necessary to run the soshul masheen with, but when pholks git so mutch cerimony on hand, that they have tew be formaly introduced ever)7 time they meet at an evening meeting, i think that they hav wore the flesh all oph from cerimony. When i cum akrost people who are perfektly krazy for ven-tilashun, i say to miself, that krit-ter was brought up in a windmill.-UteHL The majority ov the world are like rats, they live upon plunder and forsake a sinking ship. Punktuality is one grate element ov sukcess. A watch that dont keep korrekt time is wuss than no watch at all. Grate powers are useful only az they Nosegays. are made service able--the value ov a hoss depends upon hiz being well broke. Too mutch branes iz rather a hindrance than, a help to a simply bizzness man. A praktikal joke iz like a fall on the ice, thare may be phun in it, but the one that falls kant alwus see it. The soundest wisdum cums from experience, but thare iz a nearer road to it allmost az sure--reading and reflekslum. He who reads and don't reflekt, iz like the one who eats and don't exercise. The best reformers the world haz ever seen are thoze who commense on themselfs. He who simply repents ov a sin pays only 50 cents on a dollar, while he who forsakes it pays one hundred. The more a person hunts for the mote in hiz brother's eye the plainer he will diskover--if he iz a man Oat sense--the team in his own. People are more apt tew make a shield ov their religion than they are a pruning-hook. Religion iz too often kut az the clothes are, ackording tew the prevailing fashun. It iz eazier tew be virtewous than it iz tew appear so, and it pays better. Wicked men should pay homage tew virtew, for though they do not honor her she iz their gratest...