Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper feeling of loneliness than to tread the silent and deserted scene of former flow and pageant.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Past
O woman! when the good man of the house may return, when the heat and burden of the day is past, do not let him at such time, when he is weary with toil and jaded by discouragement, find upon his coming that the foot which should hasten to meet him is wandering at a distance, that the soft hand which should wipe the sweat from his brow is knocking at the door of other houses.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Wife
After all, it is the divinity within that makes the divinity without; and I have been more fascinated by a woman of talent and intelligence, though deficient in personal charms, than I have been by the most regular beauty.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Beauty
How easy it is for one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around him; and how truly is a kind heart a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity to freshen into smiles!
—Washington Irving
Topics: Kindness
Rising genius always shoots out its rays from among the clouds, but these will gradually roll away and disappear as it ascends to its steady luster.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Genius
The great British Library—an immense collection of volumes of all ages and languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most of which are seldom read: one of these sequestered pools of obsolete literature to which modern authors repair, and draw buckets full of classic lore, or “pure English, undefiled” wherewith to swell their own scanty rills of thought.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Libraries
A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends, who rejoiced with us in our sunshine desert us; when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Mothers, Friendship
Her mighty lakes, like oceans of liquid silver; her mountains with their right aerial tints; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility; her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her brought deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean; her trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its magnificence; her skies, kindling waves in the magic of the summer clouds and glorious sunshine;—no, never need an American look beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery
—Washington Irving
Topics: Wilderness
They who drink beer will think beer.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Alcoholism, Alcohol
There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenery that enters into the soul and delights and elevates it, and fills it with noble inclinations.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Soul
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.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Evils
I profess not to know how women’s hearts are wooed and won.—To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration.
—Washington Irving
The love of a delicate female is always shy and silent. Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to herself; but when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Love
The grave buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment.—From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections.—Who can look down upon the grave of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb that he should have warred with the poor handful of dust that lies moldering before him.
—Washington Irving
There is never jealousy where there is not strong regard.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Jealousy
Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Marriage, Husbands
The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal—every other affliction to forget: but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open—this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Grieving, Grief, Bereavement
A woman’s whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world: it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul on the traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless—for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Women, Love, Affection
Good temper, like a sunny day, sheds a brightness over everything; it is the sweetener of toil and the soother of disquietude.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Temper
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.
—Washington Irving
Topics: War
A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Action, Usefullness, One liners
Marriage is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Marriage
Great minds have purposes; others have wishes.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Mind, Wishes, One liners, Aspirations, Commitment, Goals, Purpose, Dedication
A woman is more considerate in affairs of love than a man; because love is more the study and business of her life.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Love
There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity that never dreads contact and communion with others, however humble.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Dignity
Speculation is the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon all its sober realities. It renders the stock-jobber a magician, and the exchange a region of enchantment.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Wealth
History is but a kind of Newgate calendar, a register of the crimes and miseries that man has inflicted on his fellowman.
—Washington Irving
Topics: History
History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal.—Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand, and their epitaphs but characters written in the dust?
—Washington Irving
Topics: Change
Some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Adversity, The Mind, Difficulties, Mind
There is one in the world who feels for him who is sad a keener pang than he feels for himself; there is one to whom reflected joy is better than that which comes direct; there is one who rejoices in another’s honor, more than in any which is one’s own; there is one on whom another’s transcendent excellence sheds no beam but that of delight; there is one who hides another’s infirmities more faithfully than one’s own; there is one who loses all sense of self in the sentiment of kindness, tenderness, and devotion to another; that one is woman.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Woman
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- Dale Carnegie American Self-Help Author
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