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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
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Washington Irving
Age: 76 †
Born: 1783
Born: April 3
Died: 1859
Died: November 28
Author
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Diplomat
Essayist
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New York City
New York
Diedrich Knickerbocker
Geoffrey Crayon
Lauuncelot Langstaff
Good
Weather
Inexhaustible
Like
Goodness
Spreading
Sea
Troubled
Attitude
Smooth
Heaven
Oil
Nature
Gifts
Thought
Precious
Equable
Mind
Keeping
Roughest
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There is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a son that trancends all other affections of the heart
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Those who are well assured of their own standing are least apt to trespass on that of others, whereas nothing is so offensive as the aspirings of vulgarity which thinks to elevate itself by humiliating its neighbor.
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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.
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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.
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I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration.
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The dance, like most dances after supper, was a merry one some of the older folks joined in it, and the squire himself figured down several couple with a partner, with whom he affirmed he had danced at every Christmas for nearly half a century.
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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.
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after a man passes 60 , his mischief is mainly in his head
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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
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To occupy an inch of dusty shelf-to have the title of their works read now and then in a future age by some drowsy churchman or casual straggler, and in another age to be lost, even to remembrance. Such is the amount of boasted immortality.
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I am always at a loss at how much to believe of my own stories.
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True love will not brook reserve it feels undervalued and outraged, when even the sorrows of those it loves are concealed from it.
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Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors who have flourished their allotted time otherwise, the creative powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mind would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of literature.
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A woman's whole life is a history of the affections.
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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.
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Some minds corrode and grow inactive under the loss of personal liberty others grow morbid and irritable but it is the nature of the poet to become tender and imaginitive in the loneliness of confinement. He banquets upon the honey of his own thoughts, and, like the captive bird, pours forth his soul in melody.
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Some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.
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Small minds are subdued by misfortunes, greater minds overcome them.
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Luxury spreads its ample board before their eyes but they are excluded from the banquet. Plenty revels over the fields but theyare starving in the midst of its abundance: the whole wilderness has blossomed into a garden but they feel as reptiles that infest it.
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