Quotation by Abraham Lincoln

Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity; and none will do it enthusiastically. Posterity has done nothing for us; and theorize on it as we may, practically we shall do very little for it, unless we are made to think we are at the same time doing something for ourselves.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), U.S. president. Speech, February 22, 1842, Washingtonian Temperance Society, Springfield, Illinois. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 1, ed. Roy P. Basler (1953).
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