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• Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. -- Washington Irving
• 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.
  -- Washington Irving...
• Society is like a lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface.
  He, however, 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....
• 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....
• Some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.
  Washington Irving...
• No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States.
  Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency....
• In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow men, he is constantly acting a studied part.
  -- Washington Irving...
• A woman's life is a history of the affections. -- Washington Irving
• The almighty dollar, -- Washington Irving (1783-1859) -- The Creole Village