Quote

It was Shakespeare's notion that on this day birds begin to couple hence probably arose the custom of sending fancy love-billets.

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
Birds
Fancy
Notion
Arose
Bird
Custom
Begin
Sending
Couple
Hence
Probably
Shakespeare
Love
Customs

More quotes by Washington Irving

Image
With every exertion, the best of men can do but a moderate amount of good but it seems in the power of the most contemptible individual to do incalculable mischief.
Washington Irving
Image
A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother's love endures through all.
Washington Irving
Image
A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.
Washington Irving
Image
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.
Washington Irving
Image
A father may turn his back on his child, … . but a mother's love endures through all.
Washington Irving
Image
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.
Washington Irving
Image
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.
Washington Irving
Image
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
Image
There is a sacredness in tears
Washington Irving
Image
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.
Washington Irving
Image
Critics are a kind of freebooters in the republic of letters--who, like deer, goats and divers other graminivorous animals, gain subsistence by gorging upon buds and leaves of the young shrubs of the forest, thereby robbing them of their verdure, and retarding their progress to maturity.
Washington Irving
Image
The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow.
Washington Irving
Image
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.
Washington Irving
Image
When friends grow cold, and the converse of intimates languishes into vapid civility and commonplace, these only continue the unaltered countenance of happier days, and cheer us with that true friendship which never deceived hope, nor deserted sorrow.
Washington Irving
Image
There are moments of mingled sorrow and tenderness, which hallow the caresses of affection.
Washington Irving
Image
The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion.
Washington Irving
Image
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
Image
After all, it is the divinity within that makes the divinity without and I have been more fascinated by a woman of talent and intelligence, though deficient in personal charms, than I have been by the most regular beauty.
Washington Irving
Image
They who drink beer will think beer.
Washington Irving
Image
I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow.
Washington Irving