Quotes by Washington Irving

About Washington Irving:

Washington Irving is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), 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 the U.S. ambassador to Spain from 1842 to 1846.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Age is a matter of feeling, not of years.

Washington Irving

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

Washington Irving

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

Washington Irving

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

Washington Irving

Her mighty lakes, like oceans of liquid silver; her mountains, with bright aerial tints; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility; her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her bro...

Washington Irving

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 thoug...

Washington Irving

It is almost startling to hear this warning of departed time sounding among the tombs, and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward towards the grave.

Washington Irving

To look upon its grass grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace.

Washington Irving

...ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves.

Washington Irving

I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration.

Washington Irving

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 ...

Washington Irving

No! no! My engagement is with no bride--the worms! the worms expect me! I am a dead man--I have been slain by robbers--my body lies at Wurtzburg--at midnight I am to be buried--the grave is waiting for me--I must keep my appointment!

Washington Irving

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

Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always understand him.

Washington Irving

For my part, I love to give myself up to the illusion of poetry. A hero of fiction that never existed is just as valuable to me as a hero of history that existed a thousand years ago.

Washington Irving

It is worthy to note, that the early popularity of Washington was not the result of brilliant achievement nor signal success; on the contrary, it rose among trials and reverses, and may almost be said to have been the fruit of defeat.

Washington Irving

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, feedi...

Washington Irving

After all, it is the divinity within that makes the divinity without; and I have been more fascinated by a woman of talent and intelligence, though deficient in personal charms, than I have been by the most regular beauty.

Washington Irving

Young lawyers attend the courts, not because they have business there, but because they have no business.

Washington Irving

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

Washington Irving

Author Bio

  • NameWashington Irving
  • DescriptionAmerican writer, historian and diplomat
  • BornApril 3, 1783
  • DiedNovember 28, 1859
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPolitician; Lawyer; Diplomat; Writer; Essayist; Playwright
  • WorksThe Legend Of Sleepy Hollow; Rip Van Winkle