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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.

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
World
Universe
Immortality
Meteors
Fall
Shining
Steadily
Others
Forgotten
Transient
Light
Mere
Shine
Littles
Soon
Doomed
Little
Members
Considering
Writing
Looking
Lights
Made
Upon
Literary

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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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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.
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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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The tie which links mother and child is of such pure and immaculate strength as to be never violated, except by those whose feelings are withered by vitiated society. Holy, simple, and beautiful in its construction, it is the emblem of all we can imagine of fidelity and truth.
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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?
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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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after a man passes 60 , his mischief is mainly in his head
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If I can, by a lucky chance, in these uneasy days, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sadness if I can, how and then, prompt a happier view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humor with his fellow-beings and himself, surely, I shall not have written in vain.
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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.
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There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living.
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Believe me, the man who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, eats oftener a sweeter morsel, however coarse, than he who procures it by the labor of his brains.
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Too young for woe, though not for tears.
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Young lawyers attend the courts, not because they have business there, but because they have no business.
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A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.
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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.
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One of the greatest and simplest tools for learning more and growing is doing more.
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The very difference of character in marriage produces a harmonious combination.
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There is no character in the comedy of human life more difficult to play well than that of an old bachelor.
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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.
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It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow.
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