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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.

Washington Irving

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Washington Irving
Age: 76 †
Born: 1783
Born: April 3
Died: 1859
Died: November 28
Author
Biographer
Diplomat
Essayist
Historian
Journalist
Lawyer
Novelist
Playwright
Politician
Writer
New York City
New York
Diedrich Knickerbocker
Geoffrey Crayon
Lauuncelot Langstaff
Whole
Hungry
Riot
Men
Ears
Hears
Worry
Lean
Herding
Community
Worrying
Mobs
Society
Continually
Turbulent
Funny
Fats
Heading
Together
Settings
Headings
Ever
Setting
Obesity

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By a kind of fashionable discipline, the eye is taught to brighten, the lip to smile, and the whole countenance to emanate with the semblance of friendly welcome, while the bosom is unwarmed by a single spark of genuine kindness and good-will.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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It's a fair wind that blew men to ale.
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Rising genius always shoots forth its rays from among clouds and vapours, but these will gradually roll away and disappear, as it ascends to its steady and meridian lustre.
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Too young for woe, though not for tears.
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One point is certain, that truth is one and immutable until the jurors all agree, they cannot all be right.
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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.
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There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity that never dreads contact and communion with others however humble.
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Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, and lifts the sprit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment.
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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.
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Wit, after all, is a mighty tart, pungent ingredient, and much too acid for some stomachs but honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting.
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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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Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.
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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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There are moments of mingled sorrow and tenderness, which hallow the caresses of affection.
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It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tendered kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet.
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[I]n the gloomy month of February.... The Deserts of Arabia are not more dreary and inhospitable than the streets of London at such a time.
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