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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.

Washington Irving

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Washington Irving
Age: 76 †
Born: 1783
Born: April 3
Died: 1859
Died: November 28
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Journalist
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New York City
New York
Diedrich Knickerbocker
Geoffrey Crayon
Lauuncelot Langstaff
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Rise
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Human
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Proof

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The easiest thing to do, whenever you fail, is to put yourself down by blaming your lack of ability for your misfortunes.
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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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Sometimes he spent hours together in the great libraries of Paris, those catacombs of departed authors, rummaging among their hoards of dusty and obsolete works in quest of food for his unhealthy appetite. He was, in a manner, a literary ghoul, feeding in the charnel-house of decayed literature.
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Other men are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure but the intercourse between the author and his fellow-men is ever new, active, and immediate.
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Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper feeling of loneliness than to tread the silent and deserted scene of former throng and pageant.
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I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow.
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Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven.
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The dullest observer must be sensible of the order and serenity prevalent in those households where the occasional exercise of a beautiful form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the keynote to every temper for the day, and attunes every spirit to harmony.
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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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He is the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart.
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How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his pages we are too much engrossed by the story of the present to think of the character and anecdotes that gave interest to the past and each age is a volume thrown aside and forgotten.
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The Indians with surprise found the mouldering trees of their forests suddenly teeming with ambrosial sweet and nothing, I am told, can exceed the greedy relish with which they banquet for the first time upon this unbought luxury of the wilderness.
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Small minds are subdued by misfortunes, greater minds overcome them.
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It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man.
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I was always fond of visiting new scenes, and observing strange characters and manners. Even when a mere child I began my travels, and made many tours of discovery into foreign parts and unknown regions of my native city, to the frequent alarm of my parents, and the emolument of the town-crier.
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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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A mother is the truest friend we have.
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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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Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always understand him.
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A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.
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