Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

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

Remark to Joshua Speed (Feb. 1865)

In Melancthon Woolsey Stryker's Hamilton, Lincoln & Other Addresses (1896). Also in John Y. Simon, Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (1975), pp. 141-142.