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 who rejoice with us in our sunshine 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.
--Washington Irving
A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows keener with constant use.
--Washington Irving
Enthusiasts soon understand each other.
--Washington Irving
Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.
--Washington Irving
He had been indulging in fanciful speculations on spiritual essences until... he had an ideal world of his own around him.
--Washington Irving
How convenient it would be to many of our great men and great families of doubtful origin, could they have the privilege of the heroes of yore, who, whenever their origin was involved in obscurity, modestly announced themselves descended from a god.
--Washington Irving
How easy it is for one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around him; and how truly is a kind heart a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity to freshen into smiles!
--Washington Irving
I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories.
--Washington Irving
I endeavor to take things as they come with cheerfulness, and when I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste to suit my dinner.
--Washington Irving
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.
--Washington Irving
Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors who have flourished their allotted time; otherwise, the creative powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mind would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of literature.
--Washington Irving
Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes, but great minds rise above them.
--Washington Irving
My native country was full of youthful promise; Europe was rich in the accumulated treasures of age.
--Washington Irving
Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every countenance bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence.
--Washington Irving
Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the declining sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.
--Washington Irving
The love of a mother is never exhausted; it never changes, it never tires. A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands: but a mother's love endures through all; in good repute, in bad repute, in the face of the world's condemnation, a mother still loves on, and still hopes that her child may turn from his evil ways, and repent; still she remembers the infant smiles that once filled her bosom with rapture, the merry laugh, the joyful shout of his childhood, the opening promise of his youth; and she can never be brought to think him all unworthy.
--Washington Irving
The man who talks everlastingly and promiscuously, who seems to have an exhaustless magazine of sound, crowds so many words into his thoughts that he always obscures, and very frequently conceals them.
--Washington Irving
The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal- every other affliction to forget: but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open- this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude.
--Washington Irving
There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place.
--Washington Irving
There is an eloquence in true enthusiasm that is not to be doubted.
--Washington Irving
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
There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature.
--Washington Irving
They who drink beer will think beer.
--Washington Irving
Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home.
--Washington Irving
Whenever a man's friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old.
--Washington Irving
Who ever hears of fat men heading a riot, or herding together in turbulent mobs?- No- no, 'tis your lean, hungry men who are continually worrying society, and setting the whole community by the ears.
--Washington Irving
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.
--Washington Irving
Found 27 occurence(s) in 52,059 quotation(s).