Top 187 Quotes & Sayings by Washington Irving
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American writer Washington Irving.
Last updated on December 3, 2024.
A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles.
A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother's love endures through all.
There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity that never dreads contact and communion with others however humble.
There is never jealousy where there is not strong regard.
One of the greatest and simplest tools for learning more and growing is doing more.
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.
Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.
The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow.
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.
He is the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart.
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 laughter abundant.
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.
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.
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.
Whenever a man's friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old.
The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind.
A sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows keener with constant use.
The easiest thing to do, whenever you fail, is to put yourself down by blaming your lack of ability for your misfortunes.
A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.
Marriage is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three.
Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.
Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them.
There is in every true 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.
Temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.
I've had it with you and your emotional constipation!
A woman's whole life is a history of the affections.
Indeed, there is an eloquence in true enthusiasm that is not to be doubted.
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.
I am always at a loss at how much to believe of my own stories.
The tongue is the only tool that gets sharper with use.
Age is a matter of feeling, not of years.
Young lawyers attend the courts, not because they have business there, but because they have no business.
There is 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.
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.
They who drink beer will think beer.
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.
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.
Great minds have purposes; others have wishes.
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.
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.
Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.
Some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.
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.
Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home.
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.
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 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.
Enthusiasts soon understand each other.
He who would greatly deserve must greatly dare.
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.
The tongue is the only instrument that gets sharper with use.
There is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a son that trancends all other affections of the heart
He that drinks beer, thinks beer.
The love of a mother is never exhausted. It never changes - it never tires - it endures through all; in good repute, in bad repute. In the face of the world's condemnation, a mother's love still lives on.
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.
after a man passes 60 , his mischief is mainly in his head
A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.
Jealous people poison their own banquet and then eat it
Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven.
Villainy wears many masks; none so dangerous as the mask of virtue.
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.
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