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Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
born in Kentucky, USA, sixteenth American president
The following thoughts are attributed to Abraham Lincoln in historical accounts published after his death. They are preserved through recollections rather than his own surviving manuscripts or verbatim transcripts. Sources are noted below each quotation.
“All through life, be sure and put your feet in the right place, and then stand firm.”
Recalled by Rebecca R. Pomroy in Anna L. Boyden's Echoes from Hospital and White House (1884), p. 61.
“Perhaps a man's character was like a tree, and his reputation like its shadow; the shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
Reported by Noah Brooks in Lincoln's Imagination, Scribner's Monthly (August 1879), p. 586.
“I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side.”
Reported as Lincoln's reply to a clergyman who hoped the Lord was on their side, in Francis B. Carpenter's Six Months at the White House, p. 282.