Quote

A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.

Washington Irving

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Pet
Lions
Sleeping
Useful
Dog
Sleep
Often
Barking
Action
Lion

More quotes by Washington Irving

Image
I sometimes think one of the great blessings we shall enjoy in heaven, will be to receive letters by every post and never be obliged to reply to them.
Washington Irving
Image
In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow men, he is constantly acting a studied part.
Washington Irving
Image
Angling is an amusement peculiarly adapted to the mild and cultivated scenery of England
Washington Irving
Image
There is in every true woman's heart, a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.
Washington Irving
Image
It is but seldom that any one overt act produces hostilities between two nations there exists, more commonly, a previous jealousy and ill will, a predisposition to take offense.
Washington Irving
Image
History is but a kind of Newgate calendar, a register of the crimes and miseries that man has inflicted on his fellow-man.
Washington Irving
Image
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.
Washington Irving
Image
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.
Washington Irving
Image
It lightens the stroke to draw near to Him who handles the rod.
Washington Irving
Image
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
Image
Into the space of one little hour sins enough may be conjured up by evil tongues to blast the fame of a whole life of virtue.
Washington Irving
Image
Great minds have purposes others have wishes.
Washington Irving
Image
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
Washington Irving
Image
It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man.
Washington Irving
Image
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?
Washington Irving
Image
What earnest worker, with hand and brain for the benefit of his fellowmen, could desire a more pleasing recognition of his usefulness than the monument of a tree, ever growing, ever blooming, and ever bearing wholesome fruit?
Washington Irving
Image
Over no nation does the press hold a more absolute control than over the people of America, for the universal education of the poorest classes makes every individual a reader.
Washington Irving
Image
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.
Washington Irving
Image
There is no character in the comedy of human life more difficult to play well than that of an old bachelor.
Washington Irving
Image
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