"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."
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Quote collection
Washington Irving quotes (page 5 of 9)
179 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages."
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"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."
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"For what is history, but... huge libel on human nature, to which we industriously add page after page, volume after volume, as if we were holding up a monument to the honor, rather than the infamy of our species."
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"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."
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"He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts. He selects that language which will convey his ideas in the most explicit and direct manner. He tries to compress as much thought as possible into a few words. On the contrary, 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."
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"A woman's whole life is a history of the affections."
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"It lightens the stroke to draw near to Him who handles the rod."
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"It's a fair wind that blew men to ale."
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"Over no nation does the press hold a more absolute control than over the people of America, for the universal education of the poorest classes makes every individual a reader."
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"Redundancy of language is never found with deep reflection. Verbiage may indicate observation, but not thinking. He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts."
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"Some minds corrode and grow inactive under the loss of personal liberty; others grow morbid and irritable; but it is the nature of the poet to become tender and imaginitive in the loneliness of confinement. He banquets upon the honey of his own thoughts, and, like the captive bird, pours forth his soul in melody."
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"The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind."
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"The very difference of character in marriage produces a harmonious combination."
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"Wit, after all, is a mighty tart, pungent ingredient, and much too acid for some stomachs; but honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting."
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"Young lawyers attend the courts, not because they have business there, but because they have no business."
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"The youthful freshness of a blameless heart."
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"I have often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of fortunes."
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"There was one species of despotism under which he had long groaned, and that was petticoat government."
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"There is nothing in England that exercises a more delightful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday customs and rural games of former times. They recall the pictures my fancy used to draw in the May morning of life, when as yet I only knew the world through books, and believed it to be all that poets had painted it; and they bring with them the flavour of those honest days of yore, in which, perhaps with equal fallacy, I am apt to think the world was more home-bred, social, and joyous than at present."
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