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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

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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
Glory
Dulness
Chance
Vigour
Art
Rear
Nature
Disappointing
Seems
Legitimate
Would
Maturity
Productions
Delight
Luxuriance

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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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The paternal hearth, the rallying-place of the affections.
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For what is history, but... huge libel on human nature, to which we industriously add page after page, volume after volume, as if we were holding up a monument to the honor, rather than the infamy of our species.
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He that drinks beer, thinks beer.
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A mother is the truest friend we have.
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I consider a story merely as a frame on which to stretch my materials.
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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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It is almost startling to hear this warning of departed time sounding among the tombs, and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward towards the grave.
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There is never jealousy where there is not strong regard.
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No man is so methodical as a complete idler, and none so scrupulous in measuring out his time as he whose time is worth nothing.
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The only happy author in this world is he who is below the care of reputation.
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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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A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us when adversity takes the place of prosperity when friends desert us when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.
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Redundancy of language is never found with deep reflection. Verbiage may indicate observation, but not thinking. He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts.
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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.
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The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal - every other affliction to forget: but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open - this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude.
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There are moments of mingled sorrow and tenderness, which hallow the caresses of affection.
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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.
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The natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our enemy with the least harm to ourselves and this of course is to be effected by stratagem.
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It is the divine attribute of the imagination, that it is irrepressible, unconfinable that when the real world is shut out, it can create a world for itself, and with a necromantic power can conjure up glorious shapes and forms, and brilliant visions to make solitude populous, and irradiate the gloom of a dungeon.
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