Doris Kearns Goodwin

“And Lincoln, as would be evidenced throughout his presidency, was a master of timing.”

“Lincoln, considering a Cabinet nominee: "He is a Radical without the petulance and fretfulness of many radicals.”

“One-time rival and subsequent usurper Secretary of State Seward finally settled into an assessment of Lincoln that, "His confidence and compassion increase every day.”

“We are now parents. The love for our offspring has opened up fresh fountains of love for each other. Edwin Stanton to his wife.”

“An adult friend of Lincoln's: "Life was to him a school.”

“Tolstoy went on to observe,"This little incident proves how largely the name of Lincoln is worshipped throughout the world and how legendary his personality has become. Now, why was Lincoln so great that he overshadows all other national heroes? He really was not a great general like Napoleon or Washington; he was not such a skillful statesman as Gladstone or Frederick the Great; but his supremacy expresses itself altogether in his peculiar moral power and in the greatness of his character."Washington was a typical American. Naopoleon was a typical Frenchmen, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country--- bigger than all the Presidents t,ogether. We are still too near to his greatness, " Tolstoy concluded, "but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when it's light beams directly on us.”

“It is not until one visits old, oppressed, suffering Europe, that he can appreciate his own government, "he observed, "that he realizes the fearful responsibility of the American people to the nations of the whole earth, to carry successfully through the experiment... That men are capable of self-government.”

“With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.”

“For your penance, say two Hail Marys, three our Fathers, and," he added, with a chuckle, "say a special prayer for the Dodgers.”

“Simon Cameron: “I loved my brother, as only the poor and lonely can love those with whom they have toiled and struggled up the rugged hill of life’s success—but he died bravely in the discharge of his duty.”

“Lincoln understood the importance, as one delegate put it, of integrating “all the elements of the Republican party—including the impracticable, the Pharisees, the better-than-thou declaimers, the long-haired men and the short-haired women.”

“(Lincoln reflecting on) George Washington's words: “It is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prospertiy. Washington advised vigilance against “the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.”

“Elizabeth Blair of brother Frank: he could “not let even a great man set his small dogs on him without kicking the dog & giving his master some share of the resentment.”

“(from John Hay's diary) “The President never appeared to better advantage in the world,” Hay proudly noted in his diary. “Though He knows how immense is the danger to himself from the unreasoning anger of that committee, he never cringed to them for an instant. He stood where he thought he was right and crushed them with his candid logic.”

“Lincoln's ability to retain his emotional balance in such difficult situations was rooted in actute self-awareness and an enormous capacity to dispel anxiety in constructive ways.”

“Washington was a typical American. Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country - bigger than all the Presidents together.We are still too near to his greatness,' (Leo) Tolstoy (in 1908) concluded, 'but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.' (748)”

“Good leadership requires you to surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree with you without fear of retaliation.”