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Top 20 David Herbert Donald Quotes (2025 Update)

David Herbert Donald Quote: “If you think about it, the historian’s task is like that of the detective.”

1. “If you think about it, the historian’s task is like that of the detective.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “The big biography of Lincoln necessarily had to do so much with his political career, his ambitions, his accomplishments in public, with less time to spend on his private life, his inner life, and I thought this might be a way of getting at that.”

2. “The big biography of Lincoln necessarily had to do so much with his political career, his ambitions, his accomplishments in public, with less time to spend on his private life, his inner life, and I thought this might be a way of getting at that.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “In Lincoln’s day a President’s religion was a very private affair. There were no public prayer meetings, no attempts to woo the Religious Right. Few of Lincoln’s countrymen knew anything at all of his religious beliefs.”

3. “In Lincoln’s day a President’s religion was a very private affair. There were no public prayer meetings, no attempts to woo the Religious Right. Few of Lincoln’s countrymen knew anything at all of his religious beliefs.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “If slavery was justified on the ground that masters were white while slaves were black, Lincoln warned, “By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.” If it was defended on the ground that masters were intellectually the superiors of blacks, the same logic applied: “By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.” The.”

4. “If slavery was justified on the ground that masters were white while slaves were black, Lincoln warned, “By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.” If it was defended on the ground that masters were intellectually the superiors of blacks, the same logic applied: “By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.” The.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “For the first time in American history citizens began to feel that the occupant of the White House was their representative. They referred to him as Father Abraham, and they showered him with homely gifts: a firkin of butter, a crate of Bartlett pears, New England salmon.”

5. “For the first time in American history citizens began to feel that the occupant of the White House was their representative. They referred to him as Father Abraham, and they showered him with homely gifts: a firkin of butter, a crate of Bartlett pears, New England salmon.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “Up early on Friday, May 18, the day when nominations were to be made, he passed some time playing “fives” – a variety of handball – with some other men in a vacant lot next to the Illinois State Journal office.”

6. “Up early on Friday, May 18, the day when nominations were to be made, he passed some time playing “fives” – a variety of handball – with some other men in a vacant lot next to the Illinois State Journal office.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “Lincoln had no such person that he could talk with. Often, as a result, he debated with himself, and he would draw up a kind of list of the pros and cons of an argument, and carefully figure them out, and he might test them in public.”

7. “Lincoln had no such person that he could talk with. Often, as a result, he debated with himself, and he would draw up a kind of list of the pros and cons of an argument, and carefully figure them out, and he might test them in public.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “Maybe I will write a memoir, perhaps I’ll do some essays, or maybe I will write a mystery story.”

8. “Maybe I will write a memoir, perhaps I’ll do some essays, or maybe I will write a mystery story.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “I’m not sure Lincoln would fare well if he were a presidential candidate today.”

9. “I’m not sure Lincoln would fare well if he were a presidential candidate today.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “I love mysteries, and I read them every night before I go to bed.”

10. “I love mysteries, and I read them every night before I go to bed.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “The more I have studied Lincoln, the more I have followed his thought processes, the more I am convinced that he understood leadership better than any other American president.”

11. “The more I have studied Lincoln, the more I have followed his thought processes, the more I am convinced that he understood leadership better than any other American president.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “It would stink in the land to have it said that an appropriation of $20,000 for furnishing the house had been overrun by the President when the poor freezing soldiers could not have blankets,” he went on. The White House “was furnished well enough – better than any house they had ever lived in.”

12. “It would stink in the land to have it said that an appropriation of $20,000 for furnishing the house had been overrun by the President when the poor freezing soldiers could not have blankets,” he went on. The White House “was furnished well enough – better than any house they had ever lived in.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “His closing promise of survival for “government of the people, by the people, for the people” may have had its origin in Daniel Webster’s 1830 speech calling the American government “made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people,” but more probably he derived it from a sermon of Theodore Parker, to which Herndon had called his attention, defining democracy as “a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people.”

13. “His closing promise of survival for “government of the people, by the people, for the people” may have had its origin in Daniel Webster’s 1830 speech calling the American government “made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people,” but more probably he derived it from a sermon of Theodore Parker, to which Herndon had called his attention, defining democracy as “a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “Kansas, Lincoln responded, “I can not enter the ring on the money basis – first, because, in the main, it is wrong; and secondly, I have not, and can not get, the money.”

14. “Kansas, Lincoln responded, “I can not enter the ring on the money basis – first, because, in the main, it is wrong; and secondly, I have not, and can not get, the money.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “I was able to sit at Lincoln’s side and see how he thought and how he acted, and how he felt about what was going on around him. I felt the pressures that were on him. You can see what people were writing to him, how they were nudging him.”

15. “I was able to sit at Lincoln’s side and see how he thought and how he acted, and how he felt about what was going on around him. I felt the pressures that were on him. You can see what people were writing to him, how they were nudging him.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “Douglas claimed that in his New Salem days Lincoln “could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the town together” – a charge that was not merely inaccurate but singularly inappropriate from a senator known to have a fondness for drink – and Lincoln jeered that Douglas’s popular-sovereignty doctrine was “as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death.”

16. “Douglas claimed that in his New Salem days Lincoln “could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the town together” – a charge that was not merely inaccurate but singularly inappropriate from a senator known to have a fondness for drink – and Lincoln jeered that Douglas’s popular-sovereignty doctrine was “as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “Lincoln was not a good impromptu speaker; he was at his best when he could read from a carefully prepared manuscript, though maybe a teleprompter could have helped that!”

17. “Lincoln was not a good impromptu speaker; he was at his best when he could read from a carefully prepared manuscript, though maybe a teleprompter could have helped that!”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “At the beginning, Lincoln was so inexperienced he had reverence for military expertise, not realizing that there wasn’t any military expertise, that the most anybody had commanded up to that point had been somebody, some troops in the Mexican War, and it had been years ago.”

18. “At the beginning, Lincoln was so inexperienced he had reverence for military expertise, not realizing that there wasn’t any military expertise, that the most anybody had commanded up to that point had been somebody, some troops in the Mexican War, and it had been years ago.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “Well, it seems to me Lincoln, I suppose, is kind of a model of a particular sort of presidency, a presidency that first of all is elected by a minority of the votes.”

19. “Well, it seems to me Lincoln, I suppose, is kind of a model of a particular sort of presidency, a presidency that first of all is elected by a minority of the votes.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was 272 words and he delivered it under three minutes. He labored on it for days. The “featured speaker,” Edward Everett, rambled on for two hours. Most people don’t even remember his name, never mind what he said.”

20. “Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was 272 words and he delivered it under three minutes. He labored on it for days. The “featured speaker,” Edward Everett, rambled on for two hours. Most people don’t even remember his name, never mind what he said.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “Lincoln seems to have had the unusual notion that a public servant’s first duty is to help people, rather than to follow bureaucratic regulations.”

21. “Lincoln seems to have had the unusual notion that a public servant’s first duty is to help people, rather than to follow bureaucratic regulations.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “Lincoln could not help making a painful comparison of their careers: “With me, the race of ambition has been a failure – a flat failure;.”

22. “Lincoln could not help making a painful comparison of their careers: “With me, the race of ambition has been a failure – a flat failure;.”

— David Herbert Donald

David Herbert Donald Quote: “Were an election for President to be held tomorrow, Old Abe would, without the special aid of any of his friends, walk over the course, without a competitor to dispute with him the great prize which his masterly ability, no less than his undoubted patriotism and unimpeachable honesty, have won.”

23. “Were an election for President to be held tomorrow, Old Abe would, without the special aid of any of his friends, walk over the course, without a competitor to dispute with him the great prize which his masterly ability, no less than his undoubted patriotism and unimpeachable honesty, have won.”

— David Herbert Donald

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