I am like a man so busy in letting rooms in one end of his house, that he can't stop to put out the fire that is burning the other.
Abraham LincolnRead
The slave-breeders and slave-traders, are a small, odious and detested class, among you; and yet in politics, they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters, as you are the master of your own negroes.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the influence of a morally reprehensible class on society and politics.
Abraham Lincoln's quote highlights the paradox of political power held by a minority group that profits from an abhorrent practice, slavery. It emphasizes that while this group is despised by the majority, they wield significant control over societal decisions, illustrating the moral implications of political dynamics and ethical responsibility within a community.
In practice
During a discussion on the legacy of slavery in America.
I am like a man so busy in letting rooms in one end of his house, that he can't stop to put out the fire that is burning the other.
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
For it has been said, all that a man hath will he give for his life; and while all contribute of their substance the soldier puts his life at stake, and often yields it up in his country's cause. The highest merit, then is due to the soldier.
And having thus chosen our course, without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear, and with manly hearts.
The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom.
Huts they made then, and fire, and skins for clothing, And a woman yielded to one man in wedlock... ... Common, to see the offspring they had made; The human race began to mellow then. Because of fire their shivering forms no longer Could bear the cold beneath the covering sky.
No opinion has ever been too errant to become a creed.
The message from Wal-Mart today to the rest of the business community is there need not be any conflict between the environment and the economy. We will find the way not only to reconcile (those), but to find new profits and new opportunities as we do the right thing.
It's normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self's agenda.
It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it… and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied… and it is all one.
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