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I have never found, in anything outside of the four walls of my study, an enjoyment equal to sitting at my writing desk with a clean page, a new theme, and a mind awake.

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
Writing
Sitting
Desks
Mind
Outside
Walls
Never
Equal
Enjoyment
Wall
Theme
Study
Awake
Four
Page
Found
Pages
Anything
Clean
Desk

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He who wins a thousand common hearts is entitled to some renown but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero.
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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 when friends desert us when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.
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The dullest observer must be sensible of the order and serenity prevalent in those households where the occasional exercise of a beautiful form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the keynote to every temper for the day, and attunes every spirit to harmony.
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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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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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The very difference of character in marriage produces a harmonious combination.
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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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There are certain half-dreaming moods of mind in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt where we may indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed.
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Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.
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Nature seems to delight in disappointing the assiduities of art, with which it would rear legitimate dulness to maturity and to glory in the vigour and luxuriance of her chance productions.
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The Englishman is too apt to neglect the present good in preparing against the possible evil.
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I've had it with you and your emotional constipation!
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I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration.
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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.
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One point is certain, that truth is one and immutable until the jurors all agree, they cannot all be right.
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Some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.
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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.
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