It was a time when a man with a policy would have been fatal to the country. I have never had a policy. I have simply tried to do what seemed best each day, as each day came.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)

Remark (1865-02) to John M. Palmer
    (Source)

About Lincoln's election in 18960. Attributed in Alexander McClure, ed., "Abe" Lincoln's Yarns and Stories (1901). Palmer was a US Senator and Governor from Illinois, who first met Lincoln in 1839 (while acting as Major-General of the state's Volunteer Army) and recounted this comment from his final visit to Lincoln White House that month.