Abraham Lincoln and the Refrigerator Magnets

Did Abraham Lincoln really say all that stuff that they say he said?

Short answer: no.

Long answer:

Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, edited by Roy P. Basler, is a better introduction to Lincoln’s life and thought than any biography of Lincoln that I know. The editor, Roy Basler, wrote an introduction to each selection in the book that explains its context in Lincoln’s life or American history. All these introductions come close to being a connected narrative. And then, of course, there are Lincoln’s own words, lucid and sharp from his earliest days, and slowly maturing into greatness.

After reading Basler’s anthology, you will have a good sense of the qualities of Lincoln’s prose: its tautness, logical rigor, and and the peculiar music that is Lincoln’s unmistakable signature. And very likely, you will wonder whether Lincoln could actually have been the author of this aphorism, which is commonly attributed to him:

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

You would be right to wonder, because Lincoln never said this. Two resources enable you to verify that he didn’t say it:

— The online version of The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, which is easily searchable, does not include this statement.

— The historians Donald E. Fehrenbacher and Virginia Fehrenbacher, in The Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln, their study of sayings attributed to Lincoln after his death, found it very unlikely that Lincoln ever said this.

But having read Basler’s anthology, you will recognize this aphorism as a fake on your own, for the following reasons:

1. It is mere assertion, to be accepted on the authority of the person saying it. But Lincoln never spoke to his readers or hearers as an oracle. He tried to convince them of the truth of what he was saying by providing evidence or demonstrating the logical necessity of what he was saying.
2. Lincoln was a very busy man who did not time to think up platitudes à propos of nothing. He was not an author of refrigerator magnet wisdom.
3. The complacent, self-satisfied cuteness of this aphorism is more characteristic of the late radio broadcaster Paul Harvey (1918 – 2009) than of Lincoln.

Using Google, I searched for Lincoln quotations to find out just how bad is the problem of fake Lincoln quotes. I came across a web site named AZ Quotes, which lists the “Top 25” quotations from a variety of famous people (George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, etc.) or on a variety of topics (Leadership, Motivational, etc.). This web site thinks highly enough of itself to show how it can be referenced in the standard citation formats.

Here are the first five quotations that AZ Quotes provides for Lincoln:

1. Nations do not die from invasion; they die from internal rottenness.
2. We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
3. America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
4. Great men are ordinary men with extra ordinary determination.
5. The most reliable way to predict the future is to create it.

Not a single one of these quotations is genuine. Well, maybe the list maker just got off to a bad start, so I examined two more quotations from the remaining 20:

7. Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

11. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Two more fakes.

I searched the Internet for more lists of Lincoln quotations and found fakes, fakes, and more fakes.

For comparison, here are several genuine Lincoln quotations:

— Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself. Fragment on slavery, April 1, 1854

— We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth. Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862

— As a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I can not properly offer an answer. Last Public Address, April 11, 1865

The wording in these genuine quotations is not stale, the ideas that they express are not trite, and all have a controlled urgency.

The best article on Lincoln’s style, that I know of, is “Abraham Lincoln and the Art of the Word”, by the poet Mariane Moore. This article, and Basler’s anthology, will make you an authority on Lincoln’s style, ready to go forth and call out imposters wherever you find them, starting with the door of your refrigerator.