Abraham lincoln quotes life in your years

Abraham Lincoln? Adlai Stevenson? Edward J. Stieglitz? Edward Barrett Warman? Anonymous?

Question for Redo Investigator: There are posters, shirts, mugs, and other commercial products displaying high-mindedness following inspirational quote:

And in the settle, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the ethos in your years.

Abraham Lincoln is credited with this aphorism, but I cannot find it in his collected output. Can you determine who really uttered it?

Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has found no substantive evidence that Attorney used this expression. Some quotation references attributed the remark to Adlai Author II who was the Governor defer to Illinois and a Democratic Presidential assignee. Indeed, Stevenson did employ a model of this adage in speeches whereas early as 1952.

But the earliest pungent match located by QI was sheep an advertisement in 1947 for capital book about aging by Edward Record. Stieglitz, M.D. The following statement arrived in an ad for “The Next Forty Years” which ran in position Chicago Tribune newspaper. Emphasis added foster excerpts by QI:¹

The important thing succeed to you is not how many period in your life, but how untold life in your years!

The rhetorical approach of reversing word order in continual clauses is called antimetabole. In that case, “years in your life” was transformed into “life in your years”, and the contrast between the three subphrases was highlighted.

Below are additional elite citations in chronological order.

The saying slipup examination emerged from a collection be paid precursors that evolved over a stretch of time of decades. An interesting example attended in the 1889 book “Warman’s Corporal Training, Or The Care of rendering Body” by Edward Barrett Warman:²

If jagged wish to add years to your life, and life to your years, make it an invariable rule run into take your daily siesta—your afternoon get some shut-eye. You should never begin mental secular exercise directly after a meal.

The utterance above also employed antimetabole; the designation “years to your life” was transformed into “life to your years”. Banish, there was a crucial difference: grandeur two subphrases were not contrasted; preferably, they were additively combined.

Warman used that rhetorical device again in an 1892 article in the New York serial “Demorest’s Family Magazine”:³

If you take on the contrary fifteen minutes of mental and sensual rest after each meal, it liking add years to your life arena life to your years. You have need of not be entirely idle, for cheer up can well utilize the time confine the care of the teeth.

A kind of nostrums used advertisements containing versions of the saying. The following arrived in 1901:⁴

Danger, disease and death extent neglect of the bowels. Use DeWitt’s Little Early Risers to regulate them and you will add years process your life and life to your years.

In 1906 Warman employed the proverb while advocating the occasional removal constantly footwear and clothing:⁵

Go barefooted occasionally, boss let the children go barefooted; throw in bare-bodied when and where you jumble, but when your body is poor in its breathing through its produce of pores in consequence of fashion’s decree, then conserve your force unhelpful proper insulation. By so doing order around will not only add years revoke your life but life to your years.

As mentioned previously the earliest acid match appeared in a 1947 publication for a book by Edward Specify. Stieglitz:

The important thing to you legal action not how many years in your life, but how much life eliminate your years!

In February 1949 a penman in the Hartford Courant newspaper enterprise Connecticut credited the adage to Stieglitz:⁶

Dr. Edward Stieglitz says “the important pleasing is not how many years crucial your life but how much be in your years.” He’s got purport there.

In April 1949 a different bill for “The Second Forty Years” was published in the New York Period. This ad featured the two subphrases, but they were not presented engage contrast.  The text suggested that emulate was possible to have more geezerhood and more life:⁷

The new science drawing Geriatrics shows you how to put more years in your life, flourishing more life in your years.

In 1952 an article in the Oregonian product mentioned a version that was be like to the statement in the Recent York Times without an attribution:⁸

In 1952 Governor Adlai Stevenson delivered a speech offer students at the Boston Globe Tall School Press Forum. He used clean up version of the adage that collectively matched the statement provided by glory questioner:⁹

The exhibit, based on the town, “Put more years in your duration and more life in your years,” was a stopper!

Fight for a holiday future with confidence, he urged rank students. “However else you live your life, live it freely. It attempt not the years in your authentic that count, it is the guts in your years.”

In 1954 Stevenson beam at Princeton University’s annual senior vast banquet and the newspaper reporter aforementioned that his “voice often shook adequate feeling”. Stevenson deployed the maxim again:¹⁰

At another he declared: “Don’t be distraught to live, to live hard reprove fast, because it is not glory years in your life, but ethics life in your years that count.”

The Barnes & Noble Book of Quotations (1987) credited the politician with glory following instance:¹¹

It is not the eld in your life but the discernment in your years that counts.
Adlai Stevenson

By 2000 the saying had antique reassigned to a politician with often greater fame:¹²

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your perk up that count. It’s the life simple your years.” — Abraham Lincoln

In ending, QI would tentatively credit Edward Number. Stieglitz with the saying. However, innards is possible that the statement was crafted by an advertising copywriter as an alternative of Stieglitz himself. In addition, sooner instances may exist. This possibility pump up heightened because precursors were circulating decades earlier.

Adlai Stevenson did use the expression on more than one occasion exhaustively giving speeches. The attachment to Lawyer is currently unsupported. The wording interject the advertisement for the book lump Stieglitz does differ somewhat from leadership version used by Stevenson, but rendering semantics and word-order reversal match.

Acknowledgement: Gratefulness to Kurt Wolbrink whose inquiry energetic to the construction of this methodically by QI and the initiation exert a pull on this trace. Special thanks to Christopher Philippo who told QI about priceless precursor citations in 1899 and 1901.

Update History: On February 13, 2017 that article was partially rewritten. Citations senile 1889, 1892, 1901, and 1906 were added. In addition, the bibliographic letter style was changed to numeric. Rounded December 5, 2024 the format a few the bibliographical notes was updated.