“I want it said of me by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.”

—  Abraham Lincoln

Recalled in a letter from Joshua Speed in Herndon's Lincoln (1890), p. 527 http://books.google.com/books?id=rywOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA527&dq=%22plucked+a+thistle+and+planted+a+flower%22
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Abraham Lincoln 618
16th President of the United States 1809–1865

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