With yesterday being President’s Day, many people had the day off of work. I wasn’t one of them, but the markets were closed along with government offices. Unfortunately, most people only think of what they’re going to do with their time off work and what great sale they can hit up at some store. We used to celebrate both Lincoln and Washington’s birthdays during the month of February until one day was designated President’s Day instead. So I thought I’d take a look at a few quotes from former President Lincoln that we could all learn from.

“Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.”

This is a little different spin on things than what we’ve been hearing lately. Everyone seems to be so enraged with the rich, full of an entitlement attitude, and hoping that the government will somehow formulate a magical plan to take from the rich and redistribute to the poor. We could all learn to accept a little more responsibility and accountability and do like Lincoln says. Don’t try to pull down the house of another, but labor diligently to build one for yourself.

“And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

Too often we put things off that we know we should take care of now thinking that we can always do it later. We shouldn’t just let the years pass us by, but we should treat everyday as if it were our last. There is so much more that we could accomplish by following this advice.

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

This is something that we could really learn from. How often have we heard that we should work smarter and not harder, yet we don’t really seem to ever take the advice.

Hopefully some of these quotes from President Lincoln have been helpful and somewhat inspiring. There’s a lot we can learn from some of the great men (and women) from history.

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