Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
1325
AUTHOR:
Abraham Lincoln (1809–65)
QUOTATION:
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
ATTRIBUTION:
President ABRAHAM LINCOLN, second inaugural address, conclusion, March 4, 1865.—The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 8, p. 333 (1953).
“Both the Gettysburg address and the Second Inaugural Address mark the height of Lincoln’s eloquence. The London Times called the latter the most sublime state paper of the century. Exactly two months later it was read over its author’s grave.”—Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, new and enl. ed., ed. John G. Nicolay and John Hay, vol. 9, p. 44, footnote (1905).
An excerpt appears on a plaque on the Veterans Administration building in Washington, D.C.: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.”
