Washington Irving Quotes
I sometimes think one of the great blessings we shall enjoy in heaven, will be to receive letters by every post and never be obliged to reply to them.
It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man - the struggle between a proud mind and an empty purse - the keeping up of a hollow show that must soon come to an end.
Christmas is here, Merry old Christmas, Gift-bearing Christmas, Day of grand memories, King of the year!
Into the space of one little hour sins enough may be conjured up by evil tongues to blast the fame of a whole life of virtue.
The natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our enemy with the least harm to ourselves; and this of course is to be effected by stratagem.
In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow men, he is constantly acting a studied part.
Acting provides the fulfillment of never being fulfilled. You're never as good as you'd like to be. So there's always something to hope for.
The land of literature is a fairy land to those who view it at a distance, but, like all other landscapes, the charm fades on a nearer approach, and the thorns and briars become visible.
I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration.
Young lawyers attend the courts, not because they have business there, but because they have no business.
He is the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart.
Who ever hears of fat men heading a riot, or herding together in turbulent mobs? No - no, your lean, hungry men who are continually worrying society, and setting the whole community by the ears.
Men are always doomed to be duped, not so much by the arts of the other as by their own imagination. They are always wooing goddesses, and marrying mere mortals.
With every exertion, the best of men can do but a moderate amount of good; but it seems in the power of the most contemptible individual to do incalculable mischief.
The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages.
No man is so methodical as a complete idler, and none so scrupulous in measuring out his time as he whose time is worth nothing.
Over no nation does the press hold a more absolute control than over the people of America, for the universal education of the poorest classes makes every individual a reader.
Redundancy of language is never found with deep reflection. Verbiage may indicate observation, but not thinking. He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts.
There was one species of despotism under which he had long groaned, and that was petticoat government.
I have often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of fortunes.
Wit, after all, is a mighty tart, pungent ingredient, and much too acid for some stomachs; but honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting.
I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow.
Good temper, like a sunny day, sheds a ray of brightness over everything; it is the sweetener of toil and the soother of disquietude!
History is but a kind of Newgate calendar, a register of the crimes and miseries that man has inflicted on his fellow-man.
To look upon its grass grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace.
No man knows what the wife of his bosom is until he has gone with her through the fiery trials of this world.
There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature.
There is an emanation from the heart in genuine hospitality which cannot be described, but is immediately felt and puts the stranger at once at his ease.
There are moments of mingled sorrow and tenderness, which hallow the caresses of affection.
And if unhappy in her love, her heart is like some fortress that has been captured, and sacked, and abandoned, and left desolate.
There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living.
There are certain half-dreaming moods of mind in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt where we may indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed.
It is almost startling to hear this warning of departed time sounding among the tombs, and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward towards the grave.