'The life in your years' - lovely quote, but no one can prove it's from Lincoln
It’s a popular inspirational quote. It’s frequently attributed to Abraham Lincoln. And it often finds its way into tweets and Facebook posts, as it did this morning from the Twitter feed of the Republication National Committee:
His leadership brought us together; his legacy inspires us still. Happy Birthday, President Lincoln! pic.twitter.com/W2rXcKHVpu
— GOP (@GOP) February 12, 2017
Only problem is: No one can confirm that the 16th president actually said it.
The website Quote Investigator reports it “has found no substantive evidence that Lincoln used this expression. Some quotation references attributed the remark to Adlai Stevenson II, who was the Governor of Illinois and a Democratic Presidential nominee. Indeed, Stevenson did deploy a version of this adage in speeches as early as 1952.”
Quote Investigator found an earlier use of the phrase: in an “advertisement in 1947 for a book about aging by Edward J. Stieglitz, M.D.”
But, information that proves Abraham Lincoln said it? Nada.
Still, the GOP isn’t alone in attributing the quote to Lincoln. Websites BrainyQuote, Values.com and GoodReads are among others who do so.
The Abraham Lincoln Research Site, founded in 1996 by a former history teacher, offers a page of “Authentic Quotes” by Lincoln. Each quote is accompanied by information on its source.
The “Life in your years” quote shows up on another page on the site - of “Unproven Quotations Attributed to Abraham Lincoln.”
This story was originally published February 12, 2017 at 4:48 PM with the headline "'The life in your years' - lovely quote, but no one can prove it's from Lincoln."