Quotes from Washington Irving

My whole course of life," I observed, "has been desultory, and I am unfitted for any periodically recurring task, or any stipulated labor of body or mind. I have no command of my talents, such as they are, and have to watch the varyings of my mind as I would those of a weathercock.

would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound.

It could not be denied, however, that he set a high value upon justice, for he sold it at its weight in gold.

It is when the rich and well-educated and highly-privileged classes neglect their duties, when they neglect to study the interests, and conciliate the affections, and instruct the opinions, and champion the rights of the people, that the latter become discontented and turbulent, and fall into the hands of demagogues: the demagogue always steps in, where the patriot is wanting.

Fortune, in fact, is a pestilent shrew, and, withal, an inexorable creditor; and though for a time she may be all smiles and courtesies, and indulge us in long credits, yet sooner or later she brings up her arrears with a vengeance, and washes out her scores with our tears.

No importa cuán despierto hayas sido, una vez te adentras en las sombras de esta región ya no puedes permanecer ajeno a su influjo; la ensoñación mágica de su atmósfera se apodera de ti al instante;

Besides, there is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for, they have scarcely had time to finish their first nap, and turn themselves in their graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from the neighborhood; so that when they turn out at night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon.

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. —Washington Irving, "The Mutability of Literature

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love.

somehow or other, there is a genial sunshine about you that warms every creeping thing into heart and confidence. Your

In the present day, when popular literature is running into the low levels of life, and luxuriating on the vices and follies of mankind; and when the universal pursuit of gain is trampling down the early growth of poetic feeling, and wearing out the verdure of the soul, I question whether it would not be of service for the reader occasionally to turn to these records of prouder times and loftier modes of thinking; and to steep himself to the very lips in old Spanish romance.

Who can tell, when he sets forth to wander, whither he may be driven by the unscertain currents of existence, or when he may return, or whether it may ever be his lot to revisit the scenes of his childhood?

I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways

There is no situation in life but has its advantages and pleasures—provided we will but take a joke as we find it

He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack—yielding, but tough; though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away—jerk! he was as erect, and carried his head as high as ever.

a country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties and impediments;

I have often wondered at the extreme fecundity of the press, and how it comes to pass that so many heads on which nature seemed to have inflicted the curse of barrenness should teem with voluminous productions.

la ternura de su naturaleza estaba en efervescencia, y que sólo necesitaba un objeto.

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvelous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by his residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow.

He could not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his back upon the old school-house; snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper, and every other niggardly patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors that should dare to call him comrade!

vicissitudes might

To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a corn-field.

sorrow than in anger," and it begins to be suspected that he never intended to injure or offend.

Chi conquista un migliaio dei soliti cuori ha diritto a qualche fama, ma chi sa rimaner assoluto padrone del cuore di una civetta è veramente un eroe.