Presidents Day

Not in vain has Lincoln lived, for he has helped to make this republic an example of justice, with no caste but the caste of humanity. ~George Bancroft


His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


He is one of those giant figures, of whom there are very few in history, who lose their nationality in death. ~David Lloyd George


Oh, wise physician of a wasted land! ~Hermann Hagedorn


Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all. ~Vachel Lindsay


Mute though his lips be, yet they still speak. Hushed is his voice, but its echoes of liberty are ringing through the world, and the sons of bondage listen with joy. ~Matthew Simpson


The important thing today is not what we say of Lincoln but what Lincoln would say of us if he were here in this hour and could note the drift and tendency in American life and American politics. ~Stephen Samuel Wise


Abraham Lincoln needs no marble shaft to perpetuate his name; his words are the most enduring monument, and will forever live in the hearts of the people. ~Osborn H. Oldroyd


If you look at his portraits they always give you an indelible impression of his great height. So does his life. Height of purpose, height of ideal, height of character, height of intelligence. ~David Lloyd George


Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone - no ancestors, no fellows, no successors. ~Robert G. Ingersoll


His grave a nation's heart shall be,
His monument a people free!
~Caroline Atherton Mason


A faith like Lincoln's would transform the world! ~James Oppenheim


He showed that fame may be won and what services be rendered by a plain son of the people unaided by any gifts of fortune. ~James Bryce


In him was vindicated the greatness of real goodness and the goodness of real greatness. ~Phillips Brooks


Humble birth did not retard his genius, nor high place corrupt his soul. ~Cass Gilbert


He was one of the few great rulers whose wisdom increased with his power, and whose spirit grew gentler and tenderer as his triumphs were multiplied. ~James A. Garfield


God and Nature together shaped him to lead in the van,
In the stress of her wildest weather when the Nation needed a Man.
~Margaret E. Sangster


His heart and his brain were utterly foreign to all vindictiveness or personal bitterness. He declared himself hotly and strongly against wrong causes, but never against men. ~London Spectator


His was the nation's sacrifice,
And ours the priceless gain.
~John Greenleaf Whittier


A statesman of the school of sound common sense, and a philanthropist of the most practical type, a patriot without a superior - his monument is a country preserved. ~C.S. Harrington


Lincoln had faith in time, and time has justified his faith. ~Benjamin Harrison


Nor all America can claim him now:
Forevermore he is Mankind's and God's.
~Reginald Wright Kauffman


He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world. ~Robert G. Ingersoll


Look on this cast, and know the hand
That bore a nation in its hold;
From this mute witness understand
What Lincoln was - how large of mould.
~E.C. Stedman


He was a common man expanded into giant proportions; well acquainted with the people, he placed his hand on the beating pulse of the nation, judged of its disease and was ready with a remedy. ~Joshua Speed


One fire was on his spirit, one resolve -
To send the keen axe to the root of wrong,
Clearing a free way to the feet of God,
The eyes of conscience testing every stroke.
~Edwin Markham


His love shone as impartial as the sun. ~Maurice Thompson


Abraham Lincoln is not dead. Emancipated from the thraldom of time, he has stepped beyond the trammels of birth, and race, and state. He lives in an epic all his own; in ever widening spiritual leadership; in the splendor of realized ideals; in inspiration to good citizenship and in multiplying memorials in literature and art, in progress and reform, in patriotism and philanthropy, in education and humanitarianism. ~John Wesley Hill


A martyr to the cause of man,
His blood is freedom's eucharist,
And in the world's great hero list
His name shall lead the van.
~Charles G. Halpin


To him was given the duty and responsibility of making that great classic of liberty, the Declaration of Independence, no longer an empty promise, but a glorious fulfillment. ~William McKinley


A type that nature wills to plan
But once in all a people's years.
~E.C. Stedman


Abraham Lincoln - the spirit incarnate of those who won victory in the Civil War - was the true representative of this people, not only for his own generation, but for all time, because he was a man among men. ~Theodore Roosevelt


It was a very lonely spirit that looked out from underneath those shaggy brows and comprehended men without fully communing with them, as if in spite of all its genial efforts at comradeship, it dwelt apart, saw its visions of duty where no man looked on. ~Woodrow Wilson


Hail, Lincoln! As the swift years lengthen
Still more majestic grows thy fame.
~Nathan Haskell Dole


This statesman was no conqueror, but his superiority consisted in his moral conquest; this President vanquished no foreign people, and his superiority lay in his self-constraint; this excellent judge of human nature cast a spell over nobody, yet is more fascinating than the shining victors of history. ~Emil Ludwig


The qualities which caused him to be acclaimed the leader, he possessed when he was teaching school, and splitting rails, and reading law in a judge's musty office. From the beginning he was a man among men who always upheld the right, advocated justice for the oppressed, and a square deal for all. ~Frank Dorrance Hopley


Meseems I feel his presence. Is he dead?
Death is a word. He lives and grander grows.
~Maurice Thompson