“Advancement — improvement in condition — is the order of things in a society of equals. As Labor is the common burthen of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burthen on to the shoulders of others, is the great, durable, curse of the race. Originally a curse for transgression upon the whole race, when, as by slavery, it is concentrated on a part only, it becomes the double-refined curse of God upon his creatures.”

— Abraham Lincoln

Fragmentary manuscript of a speech on free labor (17 September 1859?) http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln3/1:141?rgn=div1;view=fulltext; The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler (1953), vol. 3, p. 463
1850s
Context: We know, Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired laborers amongst us. How little they know, whereof they speak! There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us. Twentyfive years ago, I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of yesterday, labors on his own account to-day; and will hire others to labor for him to-morrow. Advancement — improvement in condition — is the order of things in a society of equals. As Labor is the common burthen of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burthen on to the shoulders of others, is the great, durable, curse of the race. Originally a curse for transgression upon the whole race, when, as by slavery, it is concentrated on a part only, it becomes the double-refined curse of God upon his creatures.

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 "Advancement — improvement in condition — is the order of things in a society of equals. As Labor is the common burthen …" by Abraham Lincoln?

Abraham Lincoln 618

16th President of the United States 1809–1865

Related quotes

“All selfishness is the great curse of the human race”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at Hawarden (28 May 1890), quoted in The Times (29 May 1890), p. 12.
1890s
Context: All selfishness is the great curse of the human race, and when we have a real sympathy with other people less happy than ourselves that is a good sign of something like a beginning of deliverance from selfishness.

“For their abuse of [the Black African] race, the whites will be cursed, unless they repent.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses, Vol.10, 1863, p. 110
1860s

“This may be the curse of human race. Not that we are different from one anther, but we are so alike.”

Salman Rushdie book The Enchantress of Florence

Source: The Enchantress of Florence

“Work is not mankind’s curse, but his blessing. A man becomes a man through labor. It elevates him, makes him great and aware, raises him above all other creatures.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Source: 1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

“So long as this country is cursed with slavery, so too will it be cursed with vampires.”

Seth Grahame-Smith (1976) US fiction author

Source: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

“Labor, like Israel, has many sorrows. Its women weep for their fallen and they lament for the future of the children of the race. It ill behooves one who has supped at labor's table and who has been sheltered in labor's house to curse with equal fervor and fine impartiality both labor and its adversaries when they become locked in deadly embrace.”

John L. Lewis (1880–1969) American labor leader

Labor and the Nation speech (September 3, 1937)

“The true Mason labors for the benefit of those that are to come after him, and for the advancement and improvement of his race.”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XIX : Grand Pontiff, p. 312
Context: The true Mason labors for the benefit of those that are to come after him, and for the advancement and improvement of his race. That is a poor ambition which contents itself within the limits of a single life. All men who deserve to live, desire to survive their funerals, and to live afterward in the good that they have done mankind, rather than in the fading characters written in men's memories. Most men desire to leave some work behind them that may outlast their own day and brief generation. That is an instinctive impulse, given by God, and often found in the rudest human heart; the surest proof of the soul's immortality, and of the fundamental difference between man and the wisest brutes. To plant the trees that, after we are dead, shall shelter our children, is as natural as to love the shade of those our fathers planted.

“Now a curse upon Because and his kin!”

Aleister Crowley book The Book of the Law

The Book of the Law (1904)

“Dear Father, get upon my shoulders streight,
Nor shall your Burthen be to me a Weight.
What ever chance, one common Danger we
Shall equal share, to both one safety be:
I shall Ascanius my Companion chuse;
My Wife must follow, but some distance use.”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis

“The eyes of all America are upon us, as we play our part in posterity will bless or curse us.”

Henry Knox (1750–1806) Continental Army and US Army general, US Secretary of War

Knox on the Declaration of Independence. Reported in David McCullough, 1776 (2005), p. 83.

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Abraham Lincoln 618

Related quotes

Related topics