Anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Birthday

Today is the anniversary of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, who remains surely one of the greatest and most inspirational leaders in American history, and indeed in world history.

Lincoln had some great and now famed debates with Stephen Douglas, which have become the stuff of legend. His wit and wisdom displayed in these debates helped to propel him to the highest office in the land, although many states seceded once Lincoln became president.

Indeed, the nation was tearing itself apart, and it fell upon Lincoln, as the leader, to keep it together. This he did, and he liberated the nation, once and for all, from legalized slavery. That  did not mean an end to unofficial slavery, or racism, or general unfairness. But it was a step in the right direction, and his personal wisdom proved beneficial for the entire nation, then, as well as now.

To honor Lincoln's birthday, I decided to add some of my favorite quotes from him below:

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

"Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition."

"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."

"The ballot is stronger than the bullet."

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

"Whatever you are, be a good one. "

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and cause me to tremble for safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic destroyed."

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it."

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can not fool all the people all of the time."

"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."

"A gentleman had purchased twelve negroes in different parts of Kentucky, and was taking them to a farm in the South. They were chained six and six together. A small iron clevis was around the left wrist of each, and this was fastened to the main chain by a shorter one, at a convenient distance from the others, so that the negroes were strung together precisely like so many fish upon a trotline. In this condition they were being separated forever from the scenes of their childhood, their friends, their fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, and many of them from their wives and children, and going into perpetual slavery, where the lash of the master is proverbially more ruthless and unrelenting than any other where; and yet amid all these distressing circumstances, as we would think them, they were the most cheerful and apparently happy creatures on board. One whose offense for which he had been sold was an over-fondness for his wife, played the fiddle almost continually, and the others danced, sang, cracked jokes, and played various games with cards from day to day. How true it is that "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," or in other words, that he renders the worst human conditions tolerable, while he permits the best to be nothing better than tolerable."

And my personal favorite quote from Lincoln, and which I feel is not only still relevant, but perhaps more relevant today than it was in Lincoln's time, as the stakes seem so much higher now all around the world. Here is one of his most famous quotes, where he articulated the concept of appealing to the "better angels of our nature," something that I feel Americans, and indeed people all around the world, could still benefit by today:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”