Wisdom from the White House, February 17, 2020

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Abraham Lincoln was the only American president to have filed an application with the U.S. Patent Office. His inflatable air sac lashed to the hulls of vessels would lift grounded ships off shoals and back into open water.

Patent application #6,469 was never realized — but its essential premise was by Lincoln himself in buoying a nation across civil war and onto a course of reconciliation.

It’s always a good idea to start with Lincoln on Presidents Day. Our 16th chief executive wasn’t just virtuous, he was pithy, leaving us a trove of inspirations. Two particular favorites: “Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow” and “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

Our first and third presidents, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, are eminently quotable, too. Washington: “Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation.” Jefferson: “On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.” The president between them, John Adams, was no slouch either: “Facts are stubborn things” and “Genius is sorrow’s child.”

The pressure of the presidency — aided by good wordsmiths — has yielded timeless gems from which we can benefit. Ten ring loudly today:

1. “Moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.” — Gerald R. Ford

2. “When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.” — Herbert Hoover

3. “The right thing to do never requires any subterfuge, it is always simple and direct.” — Calvin Coolidge

4. “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”— Dwight D. Eisenhower

5. “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” — Theodore Roosevelt

6. “America’s present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration.” — Warren G. Harding

7. “This Constitution was not made for a day, nor is it composed of such flexible materials as to be warped to the purposes of a casually ascendant influence.” — John Tyler

8. “Justice and goodwill will outlast passion.” — James A. Garfield

9. “No man ever listened himself out of a job.” — Calvin Coolidge

10. “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” — Thomas Jefferson

And then there’s William Howard Taft reminding us we’ve been here before: “Politics makes me sick.” Enough said.

Ten million patents have been issued since Lincoln applied for his. Someone might want to take another peek at it.

William F. B. O’Reilly is a consultant to Republicans.