I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day." - Meaning and context.">
Noah Brooks, scribe for the Sacramento Union, writing in the Harper’s Weekly for July 1865, 3 months after Lincoln had died, reported that the Lincoln once said this, at an unspecified date; as reported in"Did Abraham Lincoln Actually Say That Obama Quote?" by James M. Cornelius, The Daily Beast (9 August 2012)
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I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.

— Abraham Lincoln

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day." in the context of "Noah Brooks, scribe for the Sacramento Union, writing in the Harper’s Weekly for July 1865, 3 months after Lincoln had died, reported that the Lincoln once said this, at an unspecified date; as reported in"Did Abraham Lincoln Actually Say That Obama Quote?" by James M. Cornelius, The Daily Beast (9 August 2012)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Abraham Lincoln" (Posthumous attributions: Soon after his death, Lincoln became popular as a "wise man" to whom quotations were often attributed, and attributions without specific contemporary sources should be viewed skeptically. These attributions are arranged chronologically.) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed February 05, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

Tags

#Abraham Lincoln#overwhelming#insufficient#conviction#nowhere#driven#wisdom#seemed#times#knees#many#upon
Abraham Lincoln

About Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln, a self-taught lawyer and politician, steered the United States through its most tumultuous period, the Civil War. His unwavering commitment to preserving the Union and abolishing slavery forever altered the course of American history and enshrined him as a champion of equality and justice.