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It is worthy to note, that the early popularity of Washington was not the result of brilliant achievement nor signal success on the contrary, it rose among trials and reverses, and may almost be said to have been the fruit of defeat.

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
May
Rose
Trials
Achievement
Washington
Result
Brilliant
Reverses
Early
Notes
Signal
Among
Defeat
Signals
Results
Contrary
Popularity
Almost
Worthy
Reverse
Success
Fruit
Note

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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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I was always fond of visiting new scenes, and observing strange characters and manners. Even when a mere child I began my travels, and made many tours of discovery into foreign parts and unknown regions of my native city, to the frequent alarm of my parents, and the emolument of the town-crier.
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There is something nobly simple and pure in a taste for the cultivation of forest trees.
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after a man passes 60 , his mischief is mainly in his head
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A father may turn his back on his child, … . but a mother's love endures through all.
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The moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm the dreary hooting of the screechowl.
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Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, and lifts the sprit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment.
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It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow.
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There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.
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Man passes away his name perishes from record and recollection his history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin.
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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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It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tendered kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet.
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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.
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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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There is no character in the comedy of human life more difficult to play well than that of an old bachelor.
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They who drink beer will think beer.
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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
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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 not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man.
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The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion.
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