Washington Irving (1783–1859) was a popular American writer and diplomat. The “first American man of letters,” he is chiefly remembered as a historian and as the writer of romantic sketches and tales. He was influential in the development of the short story form and helped gain international respect for the fledgling American literature.
Born into a prosperous family in New York City, Irving studied law, visited Rome, Paris, the Netherlands, and London, and on his return in 1806 was admitted to the Bar.
Irving’s Salmagundi (1808,) a series of satirical essays on the state of the theatre, was followed by the burlesque A History of New York (1809,) supposedly written by a Dutch New Yorker named Diedrich Knickerbocker. Despite the pseudonym, it made him well known in New York.
Irving served as an officer in the 1812 War between the U.S. and U.K. and lived in Europe 1815–32. Under the pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon, he wrote The Sketch Book (1819–20,) a collection that contains his famous tales, “The Spectre Bridegroom,” “Rip Van Winkle,” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”
Irving produced another collection, Tales of a Traveller (1824.) His stay in Spain 1826–29 produced the studies The History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828) and The Conquest of Granada (1829.) Upon his return to New York in 1832, Irving published A Tour on the Prairie (1835) and The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, USA (1837.)
Irving was the U.S. ambassador to Spain 1842–46. He completed his Life of George Washington (1855–59) shortly before his death.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Washington Irving
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
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
Society is like a lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface. He, however, who would study nature in its wildness and variety, must plunge into the forest, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Society
There is never jealousy where there is not strong regard.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Jealousy
There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place.
—Washington Irving
A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Action, One liners, Usefullness
The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Sorrow, Sadness
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, Affection, Love
Honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small and the laughter abundant.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Cheerfulness
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
I am always at a loss at how much to believe of my own stories.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Writers, Writing, Authors & Writing
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
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
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
Enthusiasts soon understand each other.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Enthusiasm
There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity that never dreads contact and communion with others, however humble.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Dignity
They who drink beer will think beer.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Alcohol, Alcoholism
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. He selects that language which will convey his ideas in the most explicit and direct manner. He tries to compress as much thought as possible into a few words. On the contrary, the man who talks everlastingly and promiscuously, who seems to have an exhaustless magazine of sound, crowds so many words into his thoughts that he always obscures, and very frequently conceals them.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Style, Talking
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
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
Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Love
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
As the vine which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak, and been lifted by it in sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs, so is it beautifully ordered by Providence that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity; winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head and binding up the broken heart.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Woman
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
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
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
There is in every woman’s heart a spark of heavenly fire which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.
—Washington Irving
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: The Mind, Adversity, Difficulties, Mind
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
It is the divine attribute of the imagination, that when the real world is shut out it can create a world for itself, and with a necromantic power can conjure up glorious shapes and forms, and brilliant visions to make solitude populous, and irradiate the gloom of a dungeon.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Imagination
Marriage is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Marriage
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 rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens 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 Day, Mothers
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: Crying, Tears
The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Heroism, Heroes, Heroes/Heroism
Whenever a man’s friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Age, Aging
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
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 dullest observer must be sensible of the order and serenity prevalent in those households where the occasional exercise of a beautiful form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the keynote to every temper for the day, and attunes every spirit to harmony.
—Washington Irving
Topics: Day
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