The better angels of our nature

Posted by Bruce Kahl on December 12, 2001

In Reply to: the better angels of our nature posted by Marian on December 12, 2001

: : : : This phrase is part of a famous quote by a famous person, but I can't recall who said it. It may have been Abraham Lincoln. My Bartlett's Quotations doesn't seem to have it. I'd like to find the entire statement containing the phrase, as well as to whom it should be attributed. Any takers? Thanks.

: : : I tried www.bartleby.com and got a secondhand reference to your phrase--an attribution to Lincoln but not the context.

: : Yes, Lincoln.
: : From his first inaugural speech:

: : "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

: Thanks. I imagine Lincoln wrote his own speeches, unlike today's today's purported statesmen. His words just ring.

Yes, some opine that he was the brightest of all the US Presidents, a poet and scholar.