Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Nature seems to delight in disappointing the assiduities of art, with which it would rear legitimate dulness to maturity and to glory in the vigour and luxuriance of her chance productions.
Washington Irving
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Seems
Legitimate
Would
Maturity
Productions
Delight
Luxuriance
Glory
Dulness
Chance
Vigour
Art
Rear
Nature
Disappointing
More quotes by Washington Irving
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.
Washington Irving
Every antique farm-house and moss-grown cottage is a picture.
Washington Irving
The scholar only knows how dear these silent, yet eloquent, companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours become in the season of adversity. When all that is worldly turns to dross around us, these only retain their steady value.
Washington Irving
A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.
Washington Irving
Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven and every countenance, bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence.
Washington Irving
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
To one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries, a sea-voyage is full of subjects for meditation but then they are the wonders of the deep and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes.
Washington Irving
It's a fair wind that blew men to ale.
Washington Irving
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
He who would study nature in its wildness and variety, must plunge into the forest, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice.
Washington Irving
Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven.
Washington Irving
Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple-pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears but it was always sure to boast an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called doughnuts, or olykoeks - a delicious kind of cake, at present scarce known in this city, except in genuine Dutch families.
Washington Irving
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.
Washington Irving
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.
Washington Irving
Some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.
Washington Irving
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.
Washington Irving
I have never found, in anything outside of the four walls of my study, an enjoyment equal to sitting at my writing desk with a clean page, a new theme, and a mind awake.
Washington Irving
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
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.
Washington Irving
I am always at a loss at how much to believe of my own stories.
Washington Irving