272 Quotes by 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.

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 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.

But a wide sea voyage severs us at once. It makes us conscious of being cast loose from the secure anchorage of settled life, and sent adrift upon a doubtful world. It interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, but real, between us and our homes--a gulf, subject to tempest, and fear, and uncertainty, rendering distance palpable, and return precarious.

Like most shortcuts, it was an ill-chosen route

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.

The tie which links mother and child is of such pure and immaculate strength as to be never violated.

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.

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

It has also been the peculiar lot of our country to be visited by the worst kind of English travellers.