Sourced

• The illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages.
  • The American Conflict, A History of the Great Rebellion (1864)

• The masses of our countrymen, North and South, are eager to clasp hands across the bloody chasm which has so long divided them.
  • Acceptance of Liberal Republican nomination as President (May 29, 1872)

• The Republic needed to be passed through chastening, purifying fires of adversity and suffering: so these came and did their work and the verdure of a new national life springs greenly, luxuriantly, from their ashes.
  • Greeley on Lincoln, ed. Joel Benton, pp. 78–79 (1893)

Unsourced

• A widow of doubtful age will marry almost any sort of a white man.
  • Letter to Dr. Rufus Wilmot Griswold.

• I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers; what I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.

• If Uncle Sam should ever sell that tract for one cent per acre, he will swindle the purchaser outrageously.
  • About land in Utah

Misattributed

• Go west, young man, and grow up with the country.
  • John L. Soule, Terre Haute Express (1851)