Washington Irving Quotes - Page 4

The Englishman is too apt to neglect the present good in preparing against the possible evil.

Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home.

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.

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.

My father died and left me his blessing and his business. His blessing brought no money into my pocket, and as to his business, it soon deserted me, for I was busy writing poetry, and could not attend to law, and my clients, though they had great respect for my talents, had no faith in a poetical attorney.

The moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screechowl.

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; in good repute, in bad repute, in the face of the world's condemnation, a mother still loves on, and still hopes that her child may turn from his evil ways, and repent; still she remembers the infant smiles that once filled her bosom with rapture, the merry laugh, the joyful shout of his childhood, the opening promise of his youth; and she can never be brought to think him all unworthy.

It's a fair wind that blew men to ale.

Christmas is here, Merry old Christmas, Gift-bearing Christmas, Day of grand memories, King of the year!

History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription molders 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?

The literary world is made up of little confederacies, each looking upon its own members as the lights of the universe; and considering all others as mere transient meteors, doomed to soon fall and be forgotten, while its own luminaries are to shine steadily into immortality.

They who drink beer will think beer.

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.

True love will not brook reserve; it feels undervalued and outraged, when even the sorrows of those it loves are concealed from it.

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.

Oh the grave!--the grave!--It 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 even of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb, that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him!

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.

Poetry had breathed over and sanctified the land.

The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion.

It is worthy to note, that the early popularity of Washington was not the result of brilliant achievement nor signal success; on the contrary, it rose among trials and reverses, and may almost be said to have been the fruit of defeat.

A mother is the truest friend we have when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity.

There is a majestic grandeur in tranquillity.

I could not but smile to think in what out-of-the-way corners genius produces her bantlings! And the Muses, those capricious dames, who, forsooth, so often refuse to visit palaces, and deny a single smile to votaries in splendid studies, and gilded drawing-rooms--what holes and burrows will they frequent to lavish their favors on some ragged disciple!

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse.

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.