The paternal hearth, that rallying place of the affections.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Home
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
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Tears, Crying
An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Attitude, Humor, Weather
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.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Friendship
Every desire bears its death in its very gratification.—Curiosity languishes under repeated stimulants, and novelties cease to excite surprise, until at length we do not wonder even at a miracle.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Desire
Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above it.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Misfortune, Challenges, Courage, Adversity
Nothing can be more touching than to behold a soft and tender female, who has been all weakness and dependence, and alive to every trivial roughness while treading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly rising in mental force to be the comforter and supporter of her husband under misfortune, and abiding with unshrinking firmness the bitterest blast of adversity.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Wife
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: Difficulties, The Mind, Mind, Adversity
Young lawyers attend the courts, not because they have business there, but because they have no business.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Lawyers, Law
The tongue is the only instrument that gets sharper with use.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Communication, One liners
No man knows what the wife of his bosom is—what a ministering angel she is, until he has gone with her through the fiery trials of this world.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Wife
Marriage is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Marriage
There is a remembrance of the dead, to which we turn even from the charms of the living. These we would not exchange for the song of pleasure or the bursts of revelry.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Memory
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
Enthusiasts soon understand each other.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Enthusiasm
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
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
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
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 natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Sorrow, Sadness
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
Great minds have purposes; others have wishes.
—Washington Irving
Topics: One liners, Goals, Dedication, Commitment, Purpose, Mind, Wishes, Aspirations
A tart temper never mellows with age; and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener and sharper with constant use.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Speech, Criticism, Anger, Temper
Critics are a kind of freebooters in the republic of letters, who, like deer, goats, and diverse other graminivorous animals, gain subsistence by gorging upon buds and leaves of the young shrubs of the forest, thereby robbing them of their verdure and retarding their progress to maturity.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Critics
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 tie which links mother and child is of such pure and immaculate strength as to be never violated.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Mothers
There is a certain artificial polish and address acquired by mingling in the beau monde, which, in the commerce of the world, supplies the place of natural suavity and good humor; but it is too often purchased at the expense of all original and sterling traits of character.
—Washington Irving
In civilized life, where the happiness and indeed almost the existence of man, depends on the opinion of his fellow men. He is constantly acting a studied part.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Actors, Acting
It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Home
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