Washington Irving: Other

Washington Irving was writer, historian and diplomat from the United States. Explore interesting quotes on other.
Washington Irving: 92 quotes11 likes

“Great minds have purpose, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.”

Washington Irving book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.

"Philip of Pokanoket : An Indian Memoir".
A more extensive statement not found as such in this work is attributed to Irving in Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book (1923) edited by Roycroft Shop:
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820)
Variant: Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above it.

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

Washington Irving

Source: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories

“Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.”

Washington Irving

“Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every countenance, bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence.”

Washington Irving

Source: Old Christmas: From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving

“Other men are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse between the author and his fellow-men is ever new, active, and immediate.”

Washington Irving book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.

"Westminster Abbey".
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820)

“The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages; and unless some of its missionaries penetrate there, and erect banking houses and other pious shrines, there is no knowing how long the inhabitants may remain in their present state of contented poverty.”

Washington Irving

The Creole Village published in The Knickerbocker magazine (November 1836). This is origin of the expression almighty dollar. See Edward Bulwer-Lytton for "the pursuit of the almighty dollar". Compare: "Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold, And almost every vice,—almighty gold", Ben Jonson, Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland.

“The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal — every other affliction to forget: but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open — this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude.”

Washington Irving book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.

"Rural Funerals".
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820)