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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

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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
Language
Convey
Littles
Manner
Ideas
Proportion
Little
Thinks
Much
Direct
Thinking
Thoughts
Silence
Selects
Says
Explicit

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It lightens the stroke to draw near to Him who handles the rod.
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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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The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced.
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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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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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after a man passes 60 , his mischief is mainly in his head
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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.
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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.
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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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Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always understand him.
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The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow.
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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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He who would greatly deserve must greatly dare.
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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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Honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small and laughter abundant.
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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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The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind.
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There is a sacredness in tears
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Men are always doomed to be duped, not so much by the arts of the other as by their own imagination. They are always wooing goddesses, and marrying mere mortals.
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