WIST Quotations

Billings, Josh -- Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1871-09 (1871 ed.)

Dave — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:39:06 +0000

It iz one ov the hardest things on earth for a man to learn, — that he plays a third rate game ov whist.

[It is one of the hardest things on earth for a man to learn — that he plays a third-rate game of whist.]

Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1871-09 (1871 ed.)
(Source)

Whist was a very popular trick-taking card game in the 18th-19th Centuries.

Russell, Bertrand -- Conquest of Happiness, Part 1, ch. 3 “Competition” (1930)

Dave — Wed, 21 May 2025 15:33:23 +0000

The working life of the businessman has the psychology of a hundred-yards race, but as the race upon which he is engaged is one whose only goal is the grave, the concentration, which is appropriate enough for a hundred yards, becomes in the end somewhat excessive.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 1, ch. 3 “Competition” (1930)
(Source)

Durocher, Leo -- (Paraphrase)

Dave — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 15:31:39 +0000

Nice guys finish last.

Leo Durocher (1905-1991) American professional baseball player, manager, coach ["Leo the Lip"]
(Paraphrase)

The full quote was reported by in the column by Frank Graham, "Leo Doesn't Like Nice Guys," New York Journal-American (6 Jul 1946). When, as Brooklyn Dodgers manager, asked by a reporter if he were a nice guy:

Nice guys! Look over there. Do you know a nicer guy than Mel Ott? Or any of the other Giants? Why they’re the nicest guys in the world! And where are they? In seventh place! The nice guys over there are in seventh place. Well let them come and get me. The nice guys are all over there. In seventh place.

As the anecdote was retold (even when Graham's column was reprinted in Baseball Digest in the fall of that year), the references to "seventh place" began morphing into "last place" and "in the second division," eventually settling on the shorter version cited above. While Durocher originally denied he'd said the shorter version, he eventually lay claim to it, and used it as the title of his 1975 autobiography.

More discussion of this quotation: