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Small minds are subdued by misfortunes, greater minds overcome them.

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
Mind
Subdued
Misfortunes
Overcome
Overcoming
Minds
Small
Greater

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If I can, by a lucky chance, in these uneasy days, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sadness if I can, how and then, prompt a happier view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humor with his fellow-beings and himself, surely, I shall not have written in vain.
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And if unhappy in her love, her heart is like some fortress that has been captured, and sacked, and abandoned, and left desolate.
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The land of literature is a fairy land to those who view it at a distance, but, like all other landscapes, the charm fades on a nearer approach, and the thorns and briars become visible.
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The very difference of character in marriage produces a harmonious combination.
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To one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries, a sea-voyage is full of subjects for meditation but then they are the wonders of the deep and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes.
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I consider a story merely as a frame on which to stretch my materials.
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Jealous people poison their own banquet and then eat it
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For what is history, but... huge libel on human nature, to which we industriously add page after page, volume after volume, as if we were holding up a monument to the honor, rather than the infamy of our species.
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There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living.
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It's a fair wind that blew men to ale.
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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.
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There is something nobly simple and pure in a taste for the cultivation of forest trees.
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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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Other men are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure but the intercourse between the author and his fellow-men is ever new, active, and immediate.
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Every desire bears its death in its very gratification. Curiosity languishes under repeated stimulants, and novelties cease to excite and surprise, until at length we cannot wonder even at a miracle.
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