Lincoln's spirituality in his own words

February 12, 1:05 PMLA Religion & Spirituality ExaminerKurt Barstow

Previous Next

2 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the LA Religion & Spirituality Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

The 16th President of the United States is noted both for steering the country through its most difficult period as well as for both his noble rhetoric and earthy aphorisms. Below is a selection of quotes from the man in celebration of his 200th birthday.

GOD:

It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.

Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side, My great concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.

The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason he makes so many of them.

The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party - and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.

I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.
 

RELIGION:

I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.

When I do good, I feel good.  When I do bad, I feel bad.  And that's my religion.
 

NATION:

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. (2nd Inaugural Address)
 

CHARACTER AND THE HUMAN CONDITION:

Character is like a tree and reputation is like a shadow, the shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.

If we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class.  There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall in to this vice.  The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and generosity.

To ease another's heartache is to forget one's own.

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.

The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.

I am not bound to win, I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the light I have.

We can complain that rose bushes have thorns, or we can rejoice that thorn bushes have roses.

I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

If you look for the bad in (hu)mankind expecting to find it, you surely will.

It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.
 

HUMAN RIGHTS:

We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried upon him personally.
 

TIME:

As the problems are new, we must disenthrall ourselves from the past.

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.

We know nothing of what will happen in future, but by the analogy of experience.

Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.