Gaiman, Neil -- Blog entry (2008-12-31), “Another Year”

Dave — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 23:13:49 +0000

I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Blog entry (2008-12-31), “Another Year”

Billings, Josh -- Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1876-03 “Front Teeth” (1876 ed.)

Dave — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 12:52:39 +0000

Wize men sumtimes bild air kastles just for the fun ov the thing, it is only the phools who bild them, and then undertake to liv in them.

[Wise men sometimes build air castles just for the fun of the thing, it is only the fools who build them, and then undertake to live in them.]

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1876-03 “Front Teeth” (1876 ed.)

A variant can be found in Donald Day (comp.), Uncle Sam's Uncle Josh (1953):

Only fools build air castles and attempt to live in them.

I can't find that exact text in Billings' actual works (even in his idiosyncratic spelling).

Shaw returned to this theme in his (non-Billings) column "Uncle Esek's Wisdom," in the 1880-09 issue of Scribner's Monthly, Vol. 20, No. 5:

Building air-castles is a harmless business as long as you don’t attempt to live in them.

WIST Quotations

Gaiman, Neil -- Blog entry (2008-12-31), “Another Year”

Billings, Josh -- Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1876-03 “Front Teeth” (1876 ed.)