“Don't mistake vivacity for wit, thare iz about az mutch difference az thare iz between lightning and a lightning bug.”

Josh Billings' Old Farmer's Allminax, "January 1871" http://books.google.com/books?id=sUI1AAAAMAAJ&q=%22Don't+mistake+vivacity+for+wit+thare+iz+about+az+mutch+difference+az+thare+iz+between+lightning+and+a+lightning+bug%22&pg=PT30#v=onepage (1870)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Don't mistake vivacity for wit, thare iz about az mutch difference az thare iz between lightning and a lightning bug." by Josh Billings?
Josh Billings photo
Josh Billings 91
American humorist 1818–1885

Related quotes

Mark Twain photo

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Letter to George Bainton, 15 October 1888, solicited for and printed in George Bainton, The Art of Authorship: Literary Reminiscences, Methods of Work, and Advice to Young Beginners (1890), pp. 87–88 http://books.google.com/books?id=XjBjzRN71_IC&pg=PA87.
Twain repeated the lightning bug/lightning comparison in several contexts, and credited Josh Billings for the idea:
Josh Billings defined the difference between humor and wit as that between the lightning bug and the lightning.
Speech at the 145th annual dinner of St. Andrew's Society, New York, 30 November 1901, Mark Twain Speaking (1976), ed. Paul Fatout, p. 424
Billings' original wording was characteristically affected:
Don't mistake vivacity for wit, thare iz about az mutch difference az thare iz between lightning and a lightning bug.
Josh Billings' Old Farmer's Allminax, "January 1871" http://books.google.com/books?id=sUI1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PT30. Also in Everybody's Friend, or; Josh Billing's Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor (1874), p. 304 http://books.google.com/books?id=7rA8AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA304
Source: The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain

Josh Billings photo

“Politeness iz often wasted, but it iz a good and cheap mistake tew make.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

Jerry Garcia photo

“If the thunder don't get ya then the lightning will.”

Jerry Garcia (1942–1995) American musician and member of the Grateful Dead
Sarah Mlynowski photo

“Sometimes you don't need lightning to start a fire. Sometimes, it builds on its own.”

Sarah Mlynowski (1977) Novelist

Source: Ten Things We Did

Charles Bukowski photo

“and love was lightning and remembrance”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966

Pablo Neruda photo

“Love is a clash of lightnings”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: 100 Love Sonnets

Ben Jonson photo

“It must be done like lightning.”

Act iv, Scene v
Every Man in His Humour (1598)

“Oh, talk about lightning striking twice. Another goal scrubbed out for the United States.”

Ian Darke (1950) British association football and boxing commentator

United States v. Algeria http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=DALDkkXodRU (23 June 2010).
2010s, 2010, 2010 FIFA World Cup

W.B. Yeats photo

“With lightning, you went from me, and I could find
Nothing to make a song about”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Reconciliation http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1568/
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)
Context: Some may have blamed you that you took away
The verses that could move them on the day
When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind
With lightning, you went from me, and I could find
Nothing to make a song about but kings,
Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things
That were like memories of you--but now
We'll out, for the world lives as long ago;
And while we're in our laughing, weeping fit,
Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit.
But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone,
My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.

Black Elk photo

“My bay had lightning stripes all over him and his mane was cloud. And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

Black Elk Speaks (1961)

Related topics