58 quotes
There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity, that never dreads contact and communion with others, however humble. It is only spurious pride that is morbid and sensitive, and shrinks from every touch.
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819)
A woman is more considerate in affairs of love than man; because love is more the study and business of her life.
Bracebridge Hall (1822)
There is an eloquence in true enthusiasm that is not to be doubted.
Good temper, like a sunny day, sheds a brightness over everything; it is the sweetener of toil and the soother of disquietude.
Gems for the Fireside (1882)
I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories.
They claim to be the first inventors of those recondite beverages, cocktail, stonefence, and sherry cobbler.
Knickerbocker's History of New York (1809)
It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man.
His very faults smack of the raciness of his good qualities.
There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature.
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819)
No sooner does he hear any of his brothers mention reform or retrenchment, than up he jumps.
I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow.
Whenever a man's friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old.
Bracebridge Hall. Bachelors (1822)
Free-livers on a small scale, who are prodigal within the compass of a guinea.
The renowned and antient city of Gotham.
I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration.
Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home.
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819)
A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows keener with constant use.
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819)
That happy age when a man can be idle with impunity.
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819)
There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams, and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819)
In inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heave, spreading itself like oil over the trouble sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.