Washington Irving Quotes
Rising genius always shoots out its rays from among the clouds, but these will gradually roll away and disappear as it ascends to its steady luster.
Irving, Washington, et al. Salmagundi; or, The Whim-Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq., and Others. D. Longworth, 1807.
Agar’s books were favorites of John F. Kennedy who got the idea for Profiles in Courage from a courageous political story that Agar had written. But Kennedy in his 1960 Presidential campaign against Nixon used this Title as a Campaign Slogan. Norman Rockwell had created a wonderful political painting for a Kennedy campaign poster. The title of the Painting was “A Time of Greatness”
The Hagia Sophia was the greatest architectural and engineering enterprise of that era and remained so for centuries. The Church was so massive that there was a permanent city of 7000 people on the second level balconies with wide ramps so that horses and carts could go to the upper level. The dome was the largest unsupported dome for centuries and historians are still ignorant of exactly how it was constructed. It changed the history of architecture. The reference to Solomon referred to the building of the original Jewish Temple in Jerusalem which was up to then considered the greatest building ever constructed.
Washington Irving was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), both of which appear in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad and George Washington, as well as several histories of 15th-century Spain that deal with subjects such as Alhambra, Christopher Columbus and the Moors. Irving served as American ambassador to Spain in the 1840s.
