WIST Quotations

Lincoln, Abraham -- Speech (1850), Notes for a Law Lecture (fragment)

Dave — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 21:46:05 +0000

As a general rule never take your whole fee in advance, nor any more than a small retainer. When fully paid beforehand, you are more than a common mortal if you can feel the same interest in the case, as if something was still in prospect for you, as well as for your client. And when you lack interest in the case the job will very likely lack skill and diligence in the performance.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Speech (1850), Notes for a Law Lecture (fragment)
(Source)

No lecture of the sort given by Lincoln has been recorded. The date was assigned by Nicolay and Hay, with nothing concrete to contradict it. The lecture notes might well have been written several years later.

Beecher, Lyman -- Sermon (1823-10-15), “The Faith Once Delivered to the Saints,” Worcester, Massachusetts

Dave — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 20:05:28 +0000

No great advance has been made in science, religion, or politics, without controversy.

Lyman Beecher (1775-1863) American minister, preacher, abolitionist
Sermon (1823-10-15), “The Faith Once Delivered to the Saints,” Worcester, Massachusetts
(Source)

A sermon on Jude 3, given at the ordination of Rev. Loammi Ives Hoadly, to the Pastoral Office over the Calvinistic Church and Society. Collected in Beecher, Sermons Delivered on Various Occasions (1828) [ed. Theophilus Marvin].

This is nearly always rendered:

No great advance has ever been made in science, politics, or religion, without controversy.

That is the form recorded in Josiah Gilbert's inaugural Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1883), from which it was endlessly copied to similar collections.

Bell, Alexander Graham -- Interview, in Orison Swett Marden, How They Succeeded, ch. 2 (1901)

Dave — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 14:22:42 +0000

The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion. That intellectuality is more vigorous that has attained its strength gradually. It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider — and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation — persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.

Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) Scottish-American scientist, inventor, engineer
Interview, in Orison Swett Marden, How They Succeeded, ch. 2 (1901)
(Source)