Quotes from Washington Irving

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.

The tongue is the only tool that gets sharper with use

It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet.

A barking dog is more useful than a sleeping lion

Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; a mother's secret hope outlives them all!

That happy age when a man can be idle with impunity.

There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a serenity of the mind.

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.

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.

Honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small and laughter abundant.

They claim to be the first inventors of those recondite beverages, cocktail, stonefence, and sherry cobbler.

A woman's whole life is a history of the affections.

Temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.

Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.

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.

A sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.

Marriage is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three.

I sometimes think one of the great blessings we shall enjoy in heaven, will be to receive letters by every post and never be obliged to reply to them.

A mother is the truest friend we have . . .

Believe me, the man who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, eats oftener a sweeter morsel, however coarse, than he who procures it by the labor of his brains.

Whenever a man's friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old.

His [the author's] renown… has been purchased, not by deeds of violence and blood, but by the diligent dispensation of pleasure.

He is the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart.

Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home.