"Abraham Lincoln had great clarity of mind and expression, and he worked to make it clearer -reading Euclid in his early 30s to train his mind."
"I am asked often about Abraham Lincoln's mistakes and faults; he certainly made some mistakes. I have chapter in President Lincoln about the Powhatan affair that was a royal screw-up in the early days - right alongside the Sumter affair. Lincoln signed letters he should not signed, and the ship was sent to two places at one under two captains etc. Fortunately, no great harm. Lincoln took the blame and did not do anything like that again."
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More quotes by William Lee Miller
"It is very hard to answer the oft-posed questions about how Abraham Lincoln would respond to some current condition. My favorite story on that count is that the late great Lincoln scholar Don Fehrebacher was asked, during the struggles over bussing for racial balance a few years ago, what Lincoln would say about "bussing" and he thought awhile and then answered : "what Lincoln would say would be: "What's a bus?""
"After I published a book called Lincoln's Virtues a wit said that my next book should be Lincoln's Vices. But in my opinion that would be a short book!"
"Yes, the rise in corporate power had roots in the gearing up for the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was a Whig, a supporter of government aid to expanding industry - to "internal improvements" that supported the growth of business. He was an early capitalist, not one who wanted to preserve some rural paradise."
"Abraham Lincoln had a deep realism; he did not deceive or mislead himself, but faced the world he had to deal with as it really is. At the same time, he had a striking moral intelligence, and a confidence in the working of his own mind and conscience."
"Abraham Lincoln was not philosopher, exactly. But he did have a strong mind, which sought generalizations as well as particulars. He had a terrific memory."