Washington Irving
Washington Irving
Washington Irvingwas an American short story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle"and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of George Washington, Oliver Goldsmith and Muhammad, and several histories of 15th-century Spain dealing with subjects such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors and the Alhambra. Irving served as...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth3 April 1783
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Who ever hears of fat men heading a riot, or herding together in turbulent mobs? No - no, your lean, hungry men who are continually worrying society, and setting the whole community by the ears.
Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home.
The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind.
Young lawyers attend the courts, not because they have business there, but because they have no business.
Rising genius always shoots out its rays from among the clouds, but these will gradually roll away and disappear as it ascends to its steady luster.
The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow.
Acting provides the fulfillment of never being fulfilled. You're never as good as you'd like to be. So there's always something to hope for.
The scholar only knows how dear these silent, yet eloquent, companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours become in the season of adversity. When all that is worldly turns to dross around us, these only retain their steady value.
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.
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.
No man is so methodical as a complete idler, and none so scrupulous in measuring out his time as he whose time is worth nothing.
Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper feeling of loneliness than to tread the silent and deserted scene of former throng and pageant.
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.
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.