“Lincoln habitually would tell people he was totally ignorant of a subject which in fact he was quite well versed in, because then they would underestimate him, and when they underestimated him they would fall into his trap. Leonard Swett once said that anybody who mistook Lincoln for a simple man would soon end up with his back in a ditch.”
2010s, Interview with Tom Mackaman (2013)
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Allen C. Guelzo 82
American historian 1953Related quotes

"Highway Patrolman"
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Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 285

Journal of Discourses 19:15 (May 20, 1877).
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The History of Joseph Smith by His Mother (1853), "Rigdon's Depression"

Act V., Scene II. — (Cornelio).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 274.
I Lucidi (published 1549)

But is there less in the people of rank who live in so strange a forgetfulness of their natural condition?
Discourses on the Condition of the Great

“for he is such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him.”
Source: Pride and Prejudice