No man made great by death offers more hope to lowly pride than does Abraham Lincoln; for while living he was himself so simple as often to be dubbed a fool.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Abraham Lincoln comes from nothing, has no education, no money, lives in the middle of nowhere on the frontier. And despite the fact that he suffers one tragedy and one setback after another, through sheer force of will, he becomes something extraordinary: not only the president but the person who almost single-handedly united the country.
If Lincoln is among history's truly great men, he didn't achieve that stature until his final three years. This was when his long-held antipathy to slavery cohered into a dedicated hostility that gave larger purpose to the Civil War and also confirmed the logic of Lincoln's destiny.
If a man can bridge the gap between life and death, if he can live on after he's dead, then maybe he was a great man.
I say that no man can be greater than the man who bravely and heroically sacrifices his life for the good of others. No man can be greater than the one who meets death face to face, and yet will not shrink from what he believes to be his highest duty.
No man was ever great by imitation.
Man is only great when he acts from passion.
I think also there's no question that Lincoln has been diluted down through history in some way, almost by becoming as iconic as he is, in a way he's become diluted.
The only greatness for man is immortality.
No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.
No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.