On my recent travels into the mountains I found a neat book. Being an admirer of both Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd, I always keep an eye out for these neat little finds. The book contains some wonderful vintage photography of them, many that I have never seen. The book is published by The Peter Pauper Press. The small book is done very well-Lincoln, The Man.

“Fellow citizens, I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by many friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance. I am in favor of the national bank; I am in favor of the internal improvement system and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles. If elected, I shall be thankful; if not, it will be all the same.” The talk was given by Lincoln as his first political speech given at Pappsville, Ill., 1832, following a long dissertation by his opponent.

“I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”

“I never went to school more than six months in my life, but I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand. . . I can remember going to my little bedroom, after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening with my father,. . . trying to make out what was the exact meaning of some of their, to me, dark saying.”

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

“Others have been made fools of by girls, but this can never with truth be said of me. I most emphatically, in this instance, made a fool of myself.”

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

“I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.”

“I say “try”; if we never try, we shall never succeed.”

“I cannot understand why men should be so eager after money. Wealth is simply a superfluity of what we don’t need.”

“Die when I may, I want it said of me, by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought it would grow.”

“I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by.”

Lincoln, The Philosopher

“Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.” “Gold is good in its place, but living, brave, patriotic men are better than gold.” “It is not the qualified voters, but the qualified voters who chose to vote, that constitute the political power of the state.”