Washington Irving quotes - page 3

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. (Washington Irving)
I've had it with you and your emotional constipation!
Washington Irving
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
Age is a matter of feeling, not of years.
Washington Irving
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.
Washington Irving
The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind.
Washington Irving
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.
Washington Irving
Young lawyers attend the courts, not because they have business there, but because they have no business.
Washington Irving
He is the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart.
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
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)
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
The easiest thing to do, whenever you fail, is to put yourself down by blaming your lack of ability for your misfortunes.
Washington Irving
His [the author's] renown has been purchased, not by deeds of violence and blood, but by the diligent dispensation of pleasure.
Washington Irving
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
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
Great minds have purposes little minds have wishes. Little minds are subdued by misfortunes great minds rise above them.
Washington Irving
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.
Washington Irving
There is a sacredness in tears.... They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.
Washington Irving
Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every countenance, bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence.
Washington Irving
Marriage is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three. (Washington Irving)
There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature. They are like gigantic trees that we sometimes see on the banks of a stream; which, by their vast and deep roots, penetrating through the mere surface, and laying hold on the very foundations of the earth, preserve the soil around them from being swept away by the ever-flowing current, and hold up many a neighboring plant, and perhaps worthless weed, to perpetuity.
Washington Irving
A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.
Washington Irving
Good temper, like a sunny day, sheds a ray of brightness over everything it is the sweetener of toil and the soother of disquietude.
Washington Irving
The only happy author in this world is he who is below the care of reputation.
Washington Irving