"It would astonish if not amuse the..." - Quote by Abraham Lincoln
It would astonish if not amuse the older citizens to learn that I (a strange, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working at ten dollars per month) have been put down as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction.
More by Abraham Lincoln
“We should avoid planting and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of society.”
“Our common country is in great peril, demanding the loftiest views, and boldest action to bring it speedy relief.”
“All I ask for the negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy.”
More on Humility
“Hereafter, if you should observe an occasion to give your officers and friends a little more praise than is their due, and confess more fault than you can justly be charged with, you will only become the sooner for it, a great captain.”
“We acknowledge that we should not talk of our wives; but we seem not to know that we should talk still less of ourselves.”
“All that mankind has ever learned is nothing more than a single grain of sand on a beach that reaches to infinity.”
More on Perception
“It is easier for a man to be thought fit for an employment that he has not, than for one he stands already possessed of, and is exercising.”
“I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished.”
“For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it; and in the world there are only the vulgar, for the few find a place there only when the many have no ground to rest on.”