Quote

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

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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
Father
Died
Pocket
Left
Poetry
Clients
Money
Talent
Talents
Great
Respect
Pockets
Writing
Law
Busy
Poetical
Though
Brought
Deserted
Faith
Blessing
Attend
Business
Soon
Attorney

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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 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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[I]n the gloomy month of February.... The Deserts of Arabia are not more dreary and inhospitable than the streets of London at such a time.
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No man knows what the wife of his bosom is until he has gone with her through the fiery trials of this world.
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Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.
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There was one species of despotism under which he had long groaned, and that was petticoat government.
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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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Wit, after all, is a mighty tart, pungent ingredient, and much too acid for some stomachs but honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting.
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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.
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One of the greatest and simplest tools for learning more and growing is doing more.
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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.
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Poetry is evidently a contagious complaint.
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I have often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of fortunes.
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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.
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There is never jealousy where there is not strong regard.
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A few amber clouds floated in the sky without a breath of air to move them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually into a pure apple-green, and from that into the deep blue of the mid-heaven.
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Who ever hears of fat men heading a riot, or herding together in turbulent mobs? No - no, your lean, hungry men who are continually worrying society, and setting the whole community by the ears.
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I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration.
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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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Villainy wears many masks none so dangerous as the mask of virtue.
Washington Irving