“The sun,” said Mr. Bull, “never sets on English dominion. Do you understand how that is?” “Oh, yes,” said the Indian, “that is because God is afraid to trust them in the dark.”

A lawyer’s time and advice are his stock in trade.

[ After being requested to remove Ulysses S. Grant from command because he drank too much :] Can you tell me where he gets his whiskey? . . . Because, if I can only find out, I will send a barrel of this wonderful whiskey to every general in the army.

Mr. Lincoln [told] the story of the young man who had an aged father and mother owning considerable property. The young man being an only son and believing that the old people had lived out their usefullness assassinated them both. He was accused, tried, and convicted of the murder. When the judge came to pass sentence upon him and called upon him to give any reason he might have why the sentence of death should not be passed upon him, he with great promptness replied he hoped the court would be lenient upon him because he was a poor orphan.

[ Remark at conference of cabinet members and generals, 10 Jan. 1862 :] If General McClellan did not want to use the army, he would like to borrow it.

He [Lincoln] used to liken the case to that of the boy who, when asked how many legs his calf would have if he called its tail a leg, replied, “Five,” to which the prompt response was made that calling the tail a leg would not make it a leg.

[ Recollection of comment by an old man at an Indiana church meeting, ca. 1810 :] When I do good, I feel good, when I do bad, I feel bad, and that’s my religion.

[ Upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nov. 1862 :] So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!

If the end brings me out all right, what’s said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

[ Commenting on his loss to Stephen A. Douglas for senator from Illinois in 1858 :] I feel just like the boy who stubbed his toe— too d —— d badly hurt to laugh and too d —— d proud to cry!