“I know not how to aid you, save in the assurance of one of mature age, and much severe experience, that you can not fail, if you resolutely determine, that you will not.”

— Abraham Lincoln

Lettert to George C. Latham (22 July 1860) http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln4/1:108?rgn=div1;view=fulltext; published in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953) by Roy P. Basler, vol. 4, p. 4
1860s
Context: I have scarcely felt greater pain in my life than on learning yesterday from Bob's letter, that you had failed to enter Harvard University. And yet there is very little in it, if you will allow no feeling of discouragement to seize, and prey upon you. It is a certain truth, that you can enter, and graduate in, Harvard University; and having made the attempt, you must succeed in it. ``Must´´ is the word. I know not how to aid you, save in the assurance of one of mature age, and much severe experience, that you can not fail, if you resolutely determine, that you will not.

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Abraham Lincoln 618

16th President of the United States 1809–1865

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