There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.
Washington IrvingRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights authors who create timeless works by grounding their writing in universal human truths.
Washington Irving's quote speaks to the idea that true authors are able to transcend the changing nature of language and societal trends because they write from a place of deep understanding of human nature. Their works resonate across time as they connect with enduring emotions and experiences that remain constant, allowing their message to endure despite the evolution of language and culture.
Themes
AuthorsLanguageHuman NatureTimelessPrinciples
In practice
Example use cases
During a literary discussion, you might reference this quote to emphasize the importance of understanding human nature in writing.
More from Washington Irving
All quotes βSweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.
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Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.
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The easiest thing to do, whenever you fail, is to put yourself down by blaming your lack of ability for your misfortunes.
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If I can, by a lucky chance, in these uneasy days, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sadness; if I can, how and then, prompt a happier view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humor with his fellow-beings and himself, surely, I shall not have written in vain.
Washington IrvingRead
The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow.
Washington IrvingRead
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It infuriates me that the work of white American writers can be universal and lay claim to classic texts, while black and female authors are ghetto-ized as 'other.'
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I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not "true" because we're hungry for another kind of truth: the mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story. Fiction, because it is not about someone who lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself. --From the Introduction
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It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming of themselves like grass.
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The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They repeat, they re-arrange, they clarify the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, but with a singular change-that monstrous, consuming ego of ours being, nonce, struck out.
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