“He (Lincoln) was accustomed to hearing words, many of them boring, but he was not accustomed to group silence.”

“The only way to happiness is never to give happiness a thought.”

“It is the vocation of the Christian in every generation to out-think all opposition.”

“A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.”

“Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.”

“We have not advanced very far in our spiritual lives if we have not encountered the basic paradox of freedom, to the effect that we are most free when we are bound. But not just any way of being bound will suffice; what matters is the character of our binding. The one who would like to be an athlete, but who is unwilling to discipline his body by regular exercise and by abstinence, is not free to excel on the field or the track. His failure to train rigorously and to live abstemiously denies him the freedom to go over the bar at the desired height, or to run with the desired speed and endurance. With one concerted voice the giants of the devotional life apply the same principle to the whole of life with the dictum: Discipline is the price of freedom.”

“The question, he (Lincoln) said over and over, is not what a man's particular abilities may be, but what his rights are as a human being made in God's image.”

“The profound paradox is that the great man became more confident in his approach to others, including the man of his own Cabinet, but he recognized that his major confidence was not himself but in Another.”

“Lincoln did not admire those who think it is a mark of sophistication to sneer at patriotism. He believed that God has a will for a country and that is honest man should rejoice in the effort to try to remake his country after the Divine pattern, insofar as that pattern is revealed to him.”

“The writers in the newspapers could sounds smart because they did not have the responsibilities of decision, and they could sound bold by enunciating positions which they were not required to implement.”

“It is most remarkable that Lincoln, when he saw so much that was vulnerable in the leadership of the Church, did not move to the opposite error and become a scoffer.”