“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.” – Marcus Aurelius

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

29 September 

“I think if women would indulge more freely in vituperation, they would enjoy ten times the health they do. It seems to me they are suffering from repression.” - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” – Abraham Lincoln

 From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

29 September 

We all learn some lessons in life the hard way, and while stationed in Germany with the US Army I learned the value of reading carefully a document before I signed it. 

I was proud of the fact that I had earned a driver’s license in basic training. Every now and then I’d get assigned to drive for the day - it had a way of getting me out of the boring but familiar and into the somewhat distant and more or less exciting/exotic. Anyway, on this particular day I was assigned to transport the equivalent of The Diplomatic Pouch from our company to battalion headquarters 40 miles away. Now, you need to know that we were an ordinance company. That is, we dealt with the care and feeding of weaponry. But in our case we were what was euphemistically called a “special weapons” company. That’s Army-speak for nuclear weapons. Our company was made up of two types of 18-wheel trucks: the one transported the nuclear weapon itself, the other the rocket. If/when the balloon were ever to go up we were to transport our payloads to some secret undisclosed location in the German countryside where we would liaise with the artillery guys who put the rockets together with the payloads – and then, on the President’s order, those artillery guys would execute the presidential Push Of The Button. 

Anyway, as you can imagine, transporting that particular pouch was a big deal because the contents of that pouch did NOT want to fall into the hands of the wrong people. When I got that pouch I signed for it. Although I didn’t realize the import of that fact I was now part of a paper trail – locked in. And, you guessed it, that paper trail needed more careful attention than I gave it that day. Like, my signature meant I had taken personal responsibility by signing for that damned pouch when I got it, but I was far more intent on getting to the snack bar at the other end than getting that same paper-work signed for when I dropped it off. Mind you, when I got to battalion headquarters I did in fact leave it with the right people, but, as you can readily see, that’s not quite the same thing. 

I found out all about it three days later when I was called into my company commander’s office: my signature was the last one on record, and what did I do with The Pouch? I eventually got off the hook, but it took three LOOOONG weeks. Now I know: when you’re on the hook, it’s best to pay very close attention to paper-trails. Snack bars are of lesser importance.

“Everything has its limit – iron ore cannot be educated into gold.” - Mark Twain

 At one point during the war he was embroiled in a controversy over whether or not soldiers in the field should receive hometown newspapers with the postage paid by the Confederate government. [Davis argued – successfully, as it turned out – against such an unwarranted depletion of the Confederate treasury.]

“Babies are such a nice way to start people.” – Don Herold

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

28 September 

“A characteristic of the normal child is he doesn’t act that way very often.” – Anonymous

“I like a man who grins when he fights.” – Winston Churchill

 From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

28 September 

“Life is exciting only for those who aren’t frightened by their own passion for it.”  - Anonymous

“…and a child shall lead you.” - Isaiah

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

September 28 

“That Lincoln, after winning the presidency, made the unprecedented decision to incorporate his eminent rivals into his political family, the cabinet, was evidence of a profound self-confidence and a first indication of what would prove to others a most unexpected greatness… Every member of this administration was better known, better educated, and more experienced in public life than Lincoln. Their presence in the cabinet might have threatened to eclipse the obscure prairie lawyer from Springfield. It soon became clear, however, that Abraham Lincoln would emerge the undisputed captain of this most unusual cabinet, truly a team of rivals.  The powerful competitors who had originally disdained Lincoln became colleagues who helped him steer the country through its darkest days.” - Doris Kearns Goodwin 

“90% of success is showing up.” - Woody Allen

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

27 September 

“Fortune beffriends the bold.” – Emily Dickinson

“Ambiguity: first you’re bewildered by it, then you tolerate it, then you relish its inherent challenge[s].” – Arnold Kunst

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

27 September 

You’ll know your dream is worth striving for if it is big enough for the God of the universe to romp about in.

“I'm an idealist without illusions.” - John F. Kennedy

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

September 27 

“If all do not join now to save the good old ship of the Union this voyage, nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage.” - Abraham Lincoln 

“The secret of education is respecting the pupil.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

26 September 

“I don’t remember my father reading to me, but I remember him telling me bedtime stories. I got to pick what was in them, and then he’d make them up.” – Caroline Kennedy

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – George Bernard Shaw

 From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

26 September 

You'll know, infallibly, you're doing the thing right if you're having fun at it. Whatever "it" is.

“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

September 26 

In the 1860 Presidential election Lincoln won California and Oregon as well as every Northern free state except New Jersey. It was enough to give him a comfortable Electoral College majority. 

On the face of it, that sounds very impressive. But unfortunately, there were three other major candidates for President that year. And in the popular vote Lincoln only won 39% - that is the smallest plurality of any victorious presidential candidate in all of American presidential history, before or since. Or, to put the case a little differently, at a time when the 15th President, James Buchanan, actually described himself as “the last President of the United States,” at a time when the nation was dissolving like snow in spring, the 16th President received a vote of no-confidence from 61% of the 1860 electorate. 

“I incite this meeting to rebellion.” - Emmaline Pankhurst

From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

25 September 

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.” – Abraham Lincoln

“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.” - George Washington

 From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual” by Arnold Kunst 

25 September 

The Strong, Silent Type plays ok in the movies, maybe, but up close and personal The Terminator is a palpitating human relations disaster.

“Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly but the bumblebee doesn't know that, so it goes on flying anyway.” - Mary Kay Ash

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

September 25 

“Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired laborers amongst us. How little they know whereof they speak! There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us ... Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me.” – Fred Rogers

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

24 September  

“Three prerequisites for success are praise, gratitude and encouragement. You and I will be a success insofar as we are lavish with all three in our dealings with everyone we meet.” - Arnold Kunst

“Towering genius disdains the beaten path.” - Abraham Lincoln

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

23 September 

“Someone tore off my warning label when I was born.” – Joan Crawford

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." – Steve Jobs

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

24 September 

My time, and yours, is precious, as is to be expected of someone sent on a multifarious mission by God Himself. I am called to see Him in them; they are called to see Him in me; we are all alike called to see Him in one another, one another in Him. 

With a mission of such intricity and magnitude you and I can't fritter away this day with its distinct characteristics, its never-to-be-repeated opportunities. For day follows day, spinning out the realization of God’s very own elongated longing...

“We don’t create abundance. Abundance is always present. We create limitation.” - Anonymous

 From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

23 September 

Your God and mine made us to move mountains, not to whimper excuses. To be self-possessed, prodigal, joyous. To cavort with all the freedom and playfulness of some magnificent animal broke out finally from entangling undergrowth, free to romp about in God's very own broad, sunlit uplands.

“The secret of success is constancy of purpose.” - Benjamin Disraeli

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

September 24 

The anxiety in Washington about Lincoln's minimal chances for re-election in 1864 ended in September with the fall of Atlanta, the South’s principle city and railhead. 

Once that happened everybody suddenly saw the light. Horace Greeley announced that his newspaper The New York Tribune would “henceforth fly the banner of Abraham Lincoln for President.” Lincoln's enemies within the Republican Party like Salmon Chase the former Treasury Secretary as well as Benjamin Wade and Henry Davis all chose to stump for the President. Similarly Wendell Phillips, who had written, “I would cut off both hands before doing anything to aid Lincoln's election,” did his about-face in October. Even Thaddeus Stevens waxed eloquent about Lincoln's “firm grasp of the pilot at the helm.” 

“Beauty is not caused. It is.”- Emily Dickinson

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

September 23 

There is no such thing as a photograph or a statue or a painting of Abraham Lincoln in which his tie is straight and more than 85% of his hair is in place. [He apparently combed his hair with his fingers – which, of course, were invented long before pocket combs.] Think of the $5 bill, the Lincoln Memorial statue, Mount Rushmore. 

Photogenic, he wasn’t. 

“The winner convinces those around him that they, too, can achieve greatness.” – Arnold Kunst

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

22 September 

“I could never say in the morning, ‘I have a headache and cannot do thus and so.’ Headache or no headache, thus and so had to be done.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!” – Dr. Seuss

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

22 September 

Don’t go goofy about Technology – it has its limits. Take the metronome. Invented in the early 19th century, it consists of a spring-loaded bulbous weight at the bottom of a slender perpendicular rod with a small moveable weight attached above. When released from its ‘mooring’ the rod will click as it swings from side to side, its click rate dependent on the up-or-down positioning of that small weight. Used to stipulate the rate at which music was to be played, it was originally hailed in some quarters as a replacement for such terms as “Allegro ma non troppo,” since that clicking could be calibrated to, say, 76 beats per minute - 76 relentlessly steady beats per minute.  

Very quickly, however, those Italian terms regained their rightful place of honor since a relentlessly-regular beat invariably doomed any music so played to the domain of the machine. After all, a piece marked “Allegro ma non troppo” is to be played “fast and joyfully, but not too much” The listener in anticipating that emotion will trump speed every time. 

Get it? Technology has its limits.

“Learn to use the word ‘impossible’ with the greatest caution.” - Anonymous

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst September 22 “Come what will, I will keep faith with friend and foe.” - Abraham Lincoln

“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.” – Emily Dickinson

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

21 September 

“If you ask, ‘How are you?’ and shut up and actually listen, you could end up with a friend for life.” - Anonymous 

“A bad workman quarrels with his tools.” - Anonymous

 From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

21 September 

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“Get down on the floor and play with little kids.” - Anonymous

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

September 21 

Lincoln loved to tell this story about himself and Jefferson Davis. “’I think Jefferson will succeed,’ said one Quaker woman. ‘Why does thee think so?’ asked the second. ‘Because Jefferson is a praying man.’ ‘And so is Abraham a praying man,’ said the second. ‘Yes,’ said the first, ‘but the Lord will think Abraham is joking.’”  

“One day you’ll make peace with your demons, and the chaos in your heart will settle flat. And maybe for the first time in your life, life will smile right back at you and welcome you home.” - R. M. Drake

From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

20 September 

Interviewer: “Justice Ginsburg, how would you like to be remembered?” 

Justice Ginsburg: “As someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the best of her ability. And to help repair tears in her society, to make things a little better through the use of whatever ability she has. To do something, as my colleague David Souter would say, outside myself. Because I’ve gotten much more satisfaction for the things that I’ve done for which I was not paid.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“Even when I’m sick and depressed, I love life.” – Artur Rubenstein

 From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

20 September 

I remember taking my girl friend to San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House to hear the great Artur Rubenstein, one of a handful of world-class interpreters of the piano music of Chopin and Beethoven.   This was in 1965, 65 years after his dazzling Berlin debut at age 13. Remarkably, this old man was still at the top of his game! I had paid the princely sum of $9.00 for those two tickets; we sat a thousand miles back, up there in God's own nose-bleed section. We could barely see the 9-foot concert grand piano, never mind the famous man himself. But there was no mistaking the transcendent, crystalline, wildly passionate beauty he coaxed out of that instrument. That old man was the very incarnation of vitality. As a young man I had, for years, felt curiously drawn not just to the vitality of his music but also to the vitality of the man himself. I was particularly impressed at that night’s performance at how he reacted to the thunderous applause of his enraptured audience - between his bows he would straighten up, back ram-rod straight, and hold his hands above his head, palms facing backward, fingers straight and slightly spread, as if to say, "you have these to thank for what just happened!" 

Rubenstein was world-class - what kept this 78-year-old at the top of a very narrow, and fiercely competitive, heap?  I think I found out a few years later when I did some research on Rubenstein and learned that he had nearly committed suicide as a young man. I don’t remember the details, but I very much remember the conclusion I came to at the time, young and naive though I was: somehow the vitality I had heard that night - and saw in the graciousness of that distinctive over-the-head gesture with his hands - had everything to do with his up-close-and-personal confrontation with death he had as a young man in Berlin. He had stood on the precipice of death itself, looked long and hard over the edge - and then stepped back.  

His reasons? Who can tell, but I am convinced it included making the likes of Chopin and Beethoven come alive, right down to the last sfortzando, transporting one audience after another to the timeless, spaceless realm of those masters. He had once said, ''At every concert I leave a lot to the moment. I must have the unexpected, the unforeseen. I want to risk, to dare. I want to be surprised by what comes out. I want to enjoy it more than the audience. That way the music can bloom anew.'' 

I am older now than he was then - but even to this day I count myself lucky that, all those years ago, I was once in the presence of this remarkable man whose own boundless vitality pierced, clearly, to the heart of heaven itself.

“No one can disgrace us but ourselves.” - Josh Billings

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

September 20 

“In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve…Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.” - Abraham Lincoln

“He is not a lover who does not love forever.” - Euripides

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

19 September 

“If ever two were one, then surely we. / If ever man were loved by wife, then thee. / If ever wife was happy in a man, / Compare with me, ye women, if you can.” - Anne Bradstreet

“A light heart lives long.” - Shakespeare

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

18 September 

"You can’t get spoiled if you do your own ironing.” – Meryl Streep

“The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.” - Tacitus

 From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

19 September 

Living vicariously is as silly as eating vicariously.

“If you can read this, thank a teacher.” - Anonymous

 From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

18 September 

“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.” - Ayn
Rand

“Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.” - Thomas More

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

September 19 

Toward the end of the Civil War Emilie Helm, Mary Todd Lincoln’s sister, miraculously made it through Federal lines to visit her sister and brother-in-law in the White House. She had just buried her husband Ben, a Confederate officer, who had been killed at the Battle of Chickamauga. Lincoln said, “you know, little sister, I tried to have Ben come with us. I hope you do not feel any bitterness or that I am in any way to blame for this sorrow.” No, she said, she didn’t blame him. Ben had been grateful for brother Lincoln’s offer, but he had to follow his conscience. 

One can only imagine the depth of anguish of that visit. 

“The world is full of wonderful things waiting patiently for our wits to grow sharper.” – Anonymous

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

September 18 

“Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?” - Abraham Lincoln

“Fortune is not on the side of the faint-hearted.” – Sophocles

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

17 September 

“I think my biggest achievement is that, after going through a rather difficult time, I consider myself comparatively sane.” – Jackie Kennedy

“Do or do not; there is no ‘try.’” - Yoda

 From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

17 September 

Heaven isn't made of plastic, yours for $1.98 at Wal-Mart. The good news is, it's free for the taking. The bad news is, I've got to be prepared to take hell first, for it's only mine once I gird my loins and storm the battlements.

“A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

September 17 

“I must stand with anybody that stands right and stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.” - Abraham Lincoln 

“You don’t have to be perfect to be amazing!” - Anonymous

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

16 September 

You just can’t recognize people enough because they are all starved for recognition. All real winners are generous that way.

“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating, it’s the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design.” – Steve Jobs

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

16 September 

How to get hired: make sure the person with the checkbook knows just how valuable your serices really are. Let’s suppose you’re negotiating with the parents the monatery value of giving piano lessons to the parents’ child, and the father says something like, ‘it’s only piano lessons, $25/hour is way too much. Johnny will never become a concert pianist!” 

Your response should include the following, delivered succinctly and respectfully: “As for you and me, Johnny will be listening to music every day for the rest of his life, but from the outside looking in, as it were. Even if these lessons never extend beyond two or three months you will have insured, for a few months at this very impressionable age, that he’s experienced music from the inside looking out. That’s a lifetime’s enrichment - $25 is cheap at the price.”

“Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” - John F. Kennedy

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

September 16 

“The reason the Lost Cause actually lost was not because the Confederate leadership wasn't prepared to pay the price; it wasn't because they failed to see themselves, or behave, as men of honor; it wasn't because they lacked the kind of talent, the sheer brain power, to pull it off; it wasn't because they used up all the men, money and resources needed to get the job done; it wasn't even because God was punishing a society based on the monstrous evil of slavery. 

The real reason had to do with the logic behind the idea of secession itself. Only a few short weeks before secession actually took root, they thought they saw a new president [Abraham Lincoln] of a thing larger than their precious individual states show signs that he was going to be a state-eating ogre; that mind-set had quickly become set in concrete. Soon Jefferson Davis was warning that the Confederacy’s only hope of final victory over what eventually proved to be a vastly-determined foe was in unity and the [temporary] surrender of states' rights to a different president [namely, himself] of a thing larger than a state. Davis’s warning largely fell on deaf ears. He was told, in effect, ‘we already endured that kind of presidential tyranny; we'll not put up with it again.’ In their heart of hearts they knew Davis was right; in his heart of hearts Davis knew they were right. 

Bottom line: although each side ended up making significant accommodations to the other side, there was simply no accommodation here. The problem was that Southern leaders continually ended up tripping over a mind-set that leads to secession – a mind-set, they discovered to their cost, that has no internal check.” - Arnold Kunst

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” – Confucius

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

15 September 

In 1840 Lucretia Mott and her husband traveled to London to attend the World Anti-Slavery Convention. Aboard the ship they met, and made instant friends with, a newly-married couple, Henry and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who were also on their way to the same conference as a part of their honeymoon. The two women became fast friends; they found one another’s company exhilarating, the sparks flying with delightfully prodigal abandon between their two razor-sharp minds. 

But once at the conference the two delegates found that they could only view the proceedings, along with the other female delegates, from behind a partition – full participation was out of the question because women were ‘constitutionally unfit for public and business meetings.’ That kind of blatant discrimination impelled Mott and Stanton to organize their own convention, the first Convention for Women’s Rights, which opened eight years later in Seneca Falls, New York.

“Music isn’t what I do, it’s who I am.” - Anonymous

 From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

15 September 

The story is told of a fiddler crossing a stream with his horse and buggy in a sparsely populated area of colonial America. The buggy got caught in mid-stream, and he could neither go forward nor go back without assistance. But rather than call out for help, he wisely chose to play his fiddle. And before long people who might perhaps have found themselves too busy to help someone in need made their way to the source of the music. After all, it sounded like a party! The guy turned an annoyance into a kind of feast. 

“There is no God in war. It is merciless, cruel, vindictive, un-Christian, savage, relentless. It is all that devils could wish for.” - Anonymous

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

September 15 

During Sherman’s infamous March to the Sea, after he had taken, and then burnt, Atlanta to the ground, his well-fed, well-equipped army of 65,000 began cutting a 50-mile swath of devastation through Georgia estimated by Sherman himself at $100,000,000 in value. His rampaging troops were seldom opposed – except at one point when Federal veterans on a hill-top with swamp ground to left and right and a clear field of fire directly to their front encountered a force of 1,500 infantry with, as one Federal observed, “more courage than discretion.” They attacked them across that open ground. The dug-in Yankees greeted them with a blistering volley that left scores on the field. Astonishingly they regrouped and charged again, with the same result. After yet a third attempt to dislodge the invaders, the pathetic remnant was beaten back for a final time. When the engagement was completed the Yankees, who had incurred a mere 62 casualties, walked over that field of blood only to discover that their attackers were old men and young boys – more than 600 of them in all. 

“Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” – George Halas

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

14 September 

“Nothing bigger can come to a human being than to love a great cause more than life itself. ” – Anna Howard Shaw

“Neither the river nor fleeting time can be stopped.” - Ovid

 From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

14 September 

My God made me to move mountains, not to whimper excuses. To be self-possessed, prodigal, joyous. To cavort with all the freedom and playfulness of some magnificent animal broke out finally from the entangling undergrowth, free to romp about in God's very own broad sunlit uplands.

“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.” - George Bernard Shaw

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

September 14 

“He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.” - Abraham Lincoln

“All of my life I have always had the urge to do things better than anybody else. – Babe Didrikson Zaharias

 From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst 

13 September 

“If timeless, spaceless realities don’t stretch me beyond my comfort zones, it’s because I’m focused on the tawdry. I’ve sold my soul for a pittance.” - Arnold Kunst

“Having a soft heart in a cruel world is courage, not weakness.” - Anonymous

 From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

13 September 

How did Lincoln face criticism? Part Three  

So, how DID Lincoln handle criticism? Simple: when it was valid, he bent to it, and when it wasn’t, he steped around it. [Sounds like the way you and I should handle criticism.] 

Here’s another read on how Lincoln handled criticisms: they never amounted to much because his focus was always on the big picture. Some 40 years after Lincoln’s death this was the assessment of Lincoln by Eliju Root [former Secretary of State, Nobel Peace Prize winner]: Lincoln "won by infinite patience and sagacity. During those terrible years of the Rebellion he was not disturbing himself about what principles he ought to maintain or what end he ought to seek. He was struggling with the weaknesses and perversities of human nature at home. He was smoothing away obstacles and converting enemies and strengthening friends, and bending all possible motives and desires and prejudices into the direction of his steady purpose. Many people thought, while he was doing this, that he was trifling, that he was yielding where he ought to have been splendidly courageous and peremptory. He understood as they did not how to bend his material without breaking it; he understood as they did not how many a jest bridged over a difficult situation, and made it possible to avoid a quarrel injurious to the Union cause."