“… none seemed to think the injury arose from the use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing.”

— Abraham Lincoln

Address to the Springfield Washingtonian Temperance Society (22 February 1842). Frequently misquoted as "It has long been recognized that the problems with alcohol relate not to the use of a bad thing, but to the abuse of a good thing." http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/temperance.htm <br class="br">1840s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "… none seemed to think the injury arose from the use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing." by Abraham Lincoln?

Abraham Lincoln photo

Abraham Lincoln618

16th President of the United States 1809–1865

Related quotes

“If goodness can't come from bad things, it makes bad things unbearable.”

David Levithan book Love Is the Higher Law

Source: Love Is the Higher Law

“You are entering a phase of your life in which many different things will occur… bad things that seem good at first and good things that seem bad at first.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things — the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

"It's written by Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871-1964), as part of a 1917 preface to Boswell's 'Life of Johnson.'" <br class="br"> The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page http://www.samueljohnson.com/apocryph.html#2 Retrieved 2013-07-07 <br class="br">Misattributed

“It's a scary thing; moving on. Part of me wishes life were more predictable and part of me is excited that it's not. I think it's impossible to tell the good things from the bad things while they're happening.”

Chris Crutcher book Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

Source: Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

“If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other folks then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding.”

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American folklorist, novelist, short story writer

“Diversity in the service of freedom might be a very good thing. Diversity in the service of slavery might be a very bad thing.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, Is Diversity Good? (2003)

“To care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it's good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Notes from Underground

Part 1, Chapter 9 (page 32)
General, Notes from Underground (1864)

“Things which bestow upon the soul no greatness or confidence or freedom from care are not goods. But riches and health and similar conditions do none of these things; therefore, riches and health are not goods. Things which bestow upon the soul no greatness or confidence or freedom from care, but on the other hand create in it arrogance, vanity, and insolence, are evils. But things which are the gift of Fortune drive us into these evil ways. Therefore these things are not goods.”

Posidonius (-135–-51 BC) ancient greek philosopher

As quoted in Epistulae morales ad Lucilium by Seneca, Epistle LXXXVII (trans. R. M. Gummere)

“I can't think of any one film that improved on a good novel, but I can think of many good films that came from very bad novels.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Source: The Paris Review interview (1981), p. 338

“The difference 'twixt good and bad is not so very much,
A few more minutes at the task, an extra turn or touch,
A final test that all is right—and yet the men are few
Who seem to think it worth their while these extra things to do.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: All That Matters (1922), p.50 - Clinching the Bolt, stanza 3.

Related topics