"Marriage is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three."
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Quote collection
Washington Irving quotes (page 3 of 9)
179 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Enthusiasts soon understand each other."
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"He who would study nature in its wildness and variety, must plunge into the forest, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice."
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"An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather."
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"Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always understand him."
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"The tie which links mother and child is of such pure and immaculate strength as to be never violated."
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"I consider a story merely as a frame on which to stretch my materials."
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"It is the divine attribute of the imagination, that it is irrepressible, unconfinable; that when the real world is shut out, it can create a world for itself, and with a necromantic power can conjure up glorious shapes and forms, and brilliant visions to make solitude populous, and irradiate the gloom of a dungeon."
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"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."
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"As the vine which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils and bind up its shattered boughs, so is it beautifully ordered by Providence that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity, winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken heart."
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"Jealous people poison their own banquet and then eat it"
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"A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion."
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"Villainy wears many masks; none so dangerous as the mask of virtue."
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"Every desire bears its death in its very gratification. Curiosity languishes under repeated stimulants, and novelties cease to excite and surprise, until at length we cannot wonder even at a miracle."
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"Every antique farm-house and moss-grown cottage is a picture."
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"The literary world is made up of little confederacies, each looking upon its own members as the lights of the universe; and considering all others as mere transient meteors, doomed to soon fall and be forgotten, while its own luminaries are to shine steadily into immortality."
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"The moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screechowl."
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"There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity that never dreads contact and communion with others however humble."
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"The Englishman is too apt to neglect the present good in preparing against the possible evil."
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"Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home."
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