Confirmed in Irving’s own preface, “To the Reader,” opening his 1824 collection Tales of a Traveller. The full sentence runs on with a stage-coach joke — the short line circulating online is a genuine (if truncated) quotation.
“There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse” Washington Irving, "To the Reader," Tales of a Traveller (1824)
Can you use it?
✓ Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.
Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool
In context
Evoking the world of Washington Irving — American author, essayist & historian. Theme: "There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The source
Author
Washington Irving (1783–1859)
Work
Tales of a Traveller
Location
Preface, “To the Reader”
First published
1824 (public domain)
There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stage-coach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place.
Irving’s own preface, using the discomforts of stage-coach travel as a metaphor for the shifting variety of tales in the collection. The popular quotation stops at “bad to worse,” dropping the joke that gives it its point.
The line is listed in the sourced (not disputed) section of Wikiquote’s Washington Irving page ↗, cited to Tales of a Traveller (1824), Preface.
The exact wording, including the stage-coach continuation, appears in a scanned original edition on the Internet Archive ↗.
Popular quote sites reproduce the line under Irving’s name, some truncating it and a few dropping the article as “There is certain relief in change,” per Goodreads ↗.
✓Public domain
Tales of a Traveller was first published in 1824, well before the 1931 U.S. public-domain cutoff, so both the work and this line are in the public domain.
Fact-check
A note on how it’s quoted
The attribution to Washington Irving is correct — this is genuinely his. The only distortion is in how the line travels.
✕
WordingThe truncated version Cut short
The widely shared form stops at “even though it be from bad to worse,” dropping Irving’s stage-coach punchline — “that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place” — which is where the humour and the metaphor actually land, per the original preface ↗.
✕
Wording“There is certain relief in change” Minor variant
A few quote sites drop the article and render it “There is certain relief in change”; the original preface reads “There is a certain relief in change,” as shown on Wikiquote ↗.
✓Bottom line: rightly credited to Washington Irving and drawn from his 1824 preface — just usually quoted only halfway, per Wikiquote ↗.
Context
Why it resonates
Read as a standalone aphorism, the line sounds almost stoic — a case that any change, even for the worse, brings a kind of relief simply by breaking the monotony of a bad situation. That is why it circulates today among quotes about change and resilience.
In context it is lighter than that. Irving offers it half in jest, comparing the shifting variety of his tales to the small mercy of changing one’s cramped posture in a jolting stage-coach — trading one ache for a fresh one. The wisdom is real, but Irving delivers it with a shrug.
A comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place.
More on the preface
Tales of a Traveller (1824) appeared under Irving’s pen name Geoffrey Crayon and was coolly received at the time, though it is now valued for stories like “The Devil and Tom Walker.” The self-mocking preface “To the Reader” is where this line lives.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Washington Irving was one of the first American writers to win international fame, best known for the stories “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” He published Tales of a Traveller in 1824 under his pen name Geoffrey Crayon, framing its stories with a wry, self-deprecating preface addressed “To the Reader.” His genial, ironic voice made lines like this one quotable long after the book itself faded from popularity.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source — Chicago
Washington Irving, “To the Reader,” in Tales of a Traveller (London & New York, 1824), Preface.
MLA (9th ed.)
Irving, Washington. “To the Reader.” Tales of a Traveller, 1824.
APA (7th ed.)
Irving, W. (1824). To the reader. In Tales of a traveller.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse’?” Last verified 10 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/there-is-a-certain-relief-in-change-even-though-it-be-from