"I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories."

Washington Irving Literature See all quotes by Washington Irving →

React to this quote

More by Washington Irving

“I endeavor to take things as they come with cheerfulness, and when I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste to suit my dinner.”

“Thus man passes away; his name perishes from record and recollection; his history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin.”

“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.”

“My native country was full of youthful promise; Europe was rich in the accumulated treasures of age.”

“There is an eloquence in true enthusiasm that is not to be doubted.”

“Free-livers on a small scale, who are prodigal within the compass of a guinea.”

Resonant Thoughts

"I always work on the theory that the audience will believe you best if you believe yourself. This meant that I had to come to understand Moses well enough to believe in my portrayal of him."

— Charlton Heston

Science1923–2008

#life

"When our Marines, sent to Lebanon on a multinational peacekeeping mission with the consent of the United States Congress, were murdered in their sleep, the "blame America first crowd" didn't blame the…"

— Jeane Kirkpatrick

Politics1926–2006

#knowledge

"If...it be a thing external that causes thy grief, know, that it is not that properly that doth cause it, but thine own conceit and opinion concerning the thing: which thou mayest rid thyself of, when…"

— Marcus Aurelius

Philosophy

#knowledge

"The left once dismissed the market as exploitative; it now honors the market as rational and humane. The left once disdained mass culture as exploitative; now it celebrates it as rebellious. The left …"

— Russell Jacoby

Education1945

#knowledge