Quote

Villainy wears many masks none so dangerous as the mask of virtue.

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
Mask
None
Dangerous
Virtue
Many
Villainy
Masks
Wears

More quotes by Washington Irving

Image
History is but a kind of Newgate calendar, a register of the crimes and miseries that man has inflicted on his fellow-man.
Washington Irving
Image
Those who are well assured of their own standing are least apt to trespass on that of others, whereas nothing is so offensive as the aspirings of vulgarity which thinks to elevate itself by humiliating its neighbor.
Washington Irving
Image
The dance, like most dances after supper, was a merry one some of the older folks joined in it, and the squire himself figured down several couple with a partner, with whom he affirmed he had danced at every Christmas for nearly half a century.
Washington Irving
Image
The slanders of the pen pierce to the heart they rankle longest in the noblest spirits they dwell ever present in the mind and render it morbidly sensitive to the most trifling collision.
Washington Irving
Image
The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind.
Washington Irving
Image
I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration.
Washington Irving
Image
In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow men, he is constantly acting a studied part.
Washington Irving
Image
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.
Washington Irving
Image
The oil and wine of merry meeting.
Washington Irving
Image
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?
Washington Irving
Image
The youthful freshness of a blameless heart.
Washington Irving
Image
There is something nobly simple and pure in a taste for the cultivation of forest trees.
Washington Irving
Image
There is a majestic grandeur in tranquillity.
Washington Irving
Image
There is an emanation from the heart in genuine hospitality which cannot be described, but is immediately felt and puts the stranger at once at his ease.
Washington Irving
Image
It is but seldom that any one overt act produces hostilities between two nations there exists, more commonly, a previous jealousy and ill will, a predisposition to take offense.
Washington Irving
Image
Enthusiasts soon understand each other.
Washington Irving
Image
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.
Washington Irving
Image
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
Image
It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man.
Washington Irving
Image
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.
Washington Irving