"The dogmas of the quiet past are..." - Quote by Abraham Lincoln
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. We cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honour or dishonour, to the last generation. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, our last best hope of Earth.
More by Abraham Lincoln
“A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”
“In all that people can do for themselves, government ought not to interfere.”
“The case of Andrews is really a very bad one, as appears by the record already before me. Yet before receiving this I had orderedhis punishment commuted to imprisonmentand had so telegraphed. I did this, not on any merit in the case, but because I am trying to evade the butchering business lately.”
More on History
More on Future
“There is the solution which I respectfully offer to you in this Address to which I have given the title "The Sinews of Peace."”
“We are all affected by five things. But the most important thing that affects us is our dreams--our ability to see the future. But here's why we don't reach into the future. We're trapped either by regret of the past or the routine of the present. So make sure that the greatest pull on you is the pull of the future.”
“Sarcastic Science, she would like to know,In her complacent ministry of fear,How we propose to get away from hereWhen she has made things so we have to goOr be wiped out. Will she be asked to showUs how by rocket we may hope to steerTo some star off there, say, a half light-yearThrough temperature of absolute zero?Why wait for Science to supply the howWhen any amateur can tell it now?The way to go away should be the sameAs fifty million years ago we came-If anyone remembers how that wasI have a theory, but it hardly does.”