A Quote by Abraham Lincoln

A tendancy to melancholy...let it be observed, is a misfortune, not a fault.

Abraham Lincoln

Quote Topics

Fault Melancholy Misfortune Observed

Quote Author

Abraham Lincoln
American - President
February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865

As we have said, robust souls are sometimes almost, but not entirely, overthrown by strokes of misfortune....Despair has steps leading upward. From total depression we rise to despondency, from despondency to affliction, from affliction to melancholy. Melancholy is a twilight state in which suffering transmutes into a somber joy....Melancholy is the enjoyment of being sad.

Victor Hugo

No one is to blame. It is neither their fault nor ours. It is the misfortune of being born when a whole world is dying.

Alexander Herzen

I will not look at another's bowl intent on finding fault: a training to be observed.

Gautama Buddha

And oftentimes excusing of a fault Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse, As patches set upon a little breach, Discredit more in hiding of the fault Than did the fault before it was so patch'd.

William Shakespeare

I was a lawyer for 10 years, and several of my clients had the misfortune, through no fault of my own, of going to prison. I visited them occasionally.

John Grisham

What a misfortune to be a woman! And yet, the worst misfortune is not to understand what a misfortune it is.

Soren Kierkegaard

It is no small misfortune and disgrace that, through our own fault, we neither understand our nature nor our origin.

Saint Teresa of Avila

The lower sort of men must be indulged the consolation of finding fault with those above them; without that, they would be so melancholy that it would be dangerous, considering their numbers.

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax

You must speak the vision of your project in a way that convinces people to pay for it. If they won't pay for it, that is the artist's fault. It is my fault. It is your fault. It is not the executive's fault or the world's.

Jill Soloway

Moreover, nothing is so rare as to see misfortune fairly portrayed; the tendency is either to treat the unfortunate person as though catastrophe were his natural vocation, or to ignore the effects of misfortune on the soul, to assume, that is, that the soul can suffer and remain unmarked by it, can fail, in fact, to be recast in misfortune's image.

Simone Weil

A man's mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault.

Walter Bagehot

Freedom is only to be found where there is burden to be shouldered. In creative achievements this burden always represents an imperative and a need that weighs heavily upon man’s mood, so that he comes to be in a mood of melancholy. All creative action resides in a mood of melancholy, whether we are clearly aware of the fact or not, whether we speak at length about it or not. All creative action resides in a mood of melancholy, but this is not to say that everyone in a melancholy mood is creative.

Martin Heidegger

One of man's greatest failings is that he looks almost always for an excuse, in the misfortune that befalls him through his own fault, before looking for a remedy-which means he often finds the remedy too late.

Jean Francois Paul de Gondi

It seems the misfortune of one can plow a deeper furrow in the heart than the misfortune of millions.

Kirby Larson

Women have a smile for every joy, a tear for every sorrow, a consolation for every grief, an excuse for every fault, a prayer for every misfortune, and encouragement for every hope.