The Beaux’ Stratagem (1707), Bon, Act i, Sc. 1.
“Sir, I shall not defeat you - I shall transcend you.”
Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 17 (p. 408)
Said to Abraham Lincoln on the ride back from Lincoln's inauguration as president (4 March 1861); as quoted in James Buchanan (2004) by Jean H. Baker, Pg 140; This or slightly paraphrased variants or abbreviated versions have also been been reported as having been said before the inauguration:
Sir, if you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning [home], you are a happy man indeed.
If you are as happy entering the presidency as I am in leaving it, then you are truly a happy man.
As quoted in Presidential Leadership : Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (2004) edited by James Taranto and Leonard Leo
Earlier variant: Some knave or fool got up a lie from the whole cloth and it was telegraphed over the country that I was about to purchase or had purchased a place somewhere else and would not return to Wheatland. If my successor should be as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland he will indeed be a happy man. I am just now in my own mind chalking out the course of my last message. In it, should Providence continue his blessing, I shall have nothing to record but uninterrupted success for my country. The trouble about the slavery question would all have been avoided, had the Country submitted to the decision of the Supreme Court delivered two or three days after my inaugural.
Letter to William Carpenter (13 September 1860); as published in Historical Papers and Addresses of the Lancaster County Historical Society.
“Uxbridge: By God, sir, I've lost my leg!
Wellington: By God, sir, so you have!”
Exchange said to have occurred at the Battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815), after Lord Uxbridge lost his leg to a cannonball; as quoted in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004)
Variant account:
Uxbridge: I have lost my leg, by God!
Wellington: By God, and have you!
Thomas Hardy, in The Dynasts, Pt. III Act VII, scene viii, portraying the incident.
Letter to Constantijn Huygens (Amsterdam, after Feb. 1636) http://remdoc.huygens.knaw.nl/#/document/remdoc/e4429
Rembrandt emphasizes here the urge for a place with bright light, necessary to view his painting well. Not certain is which painting by Rembrandt is meant here.
1630 - 1640
“You have a grim taste in miracles, my friend.”
Source: Eifelheim (2006), Chapter IV (p. 60)
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
Context: I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and, if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last.
