Abraham Lincoln Quotes on Wisdom & Knowledge (5 Quotes)

Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good.

Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good.

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even, hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now now when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise councils may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.

I have been driven many times to 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.

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words And this, too, shall pass away. How much it expresses How chastening in the hour of pride how consoling in the depth of affliction Many versions of this story exist. Another one is 'The Sultan asked for a Signet motto, that should hold good for Adversity or Prosperity. Solomon gave him, 'This also shall pass away.' Edward Fitzgerald, Polonius A Collection of Wise Saws and Modern Instances, item 112, p. 80 (1901). The words In neez bogzarad, which can be translated, 'This also shall pass,' appear in the Diven of the twelfth century Persian poet and philosopher, Sana'I of Ghaznl, ed. Mazahir Musaffa, p. 92 (1957).