QuoteQuest“I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.”
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Listed with a citation on Wikiquote. Attribution is source-supported, not independently verified.
Live wording check · 2026-10-24
I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me. Citation: Letter to John T. Stuart (23 January 1841), Collected Works 1:229-30 Listed on https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln (CC BY-SA)Read evidence
Source
- Title
- Wikiquote: Abraham Lincoln
- Type
- Wikiquote (CC BY-SA) · Secondary source
Cite this source
- Bibliography entry
- Lincoln, Abraham. (n.d.). Wikiquote: Abraham Lincoln. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln
- Quotation citation
- Abraham Lincoln (n.d.)
- In-text citation
- (Abraham Lincoln, n.d.)
Incomplete citation — missing: publication date, publisher, page or location. Check citations against your institution's style guide.
Provenance: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln