Abraham Lincoln on Interacting With Others

No man resolved to make the most of himself, can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating of his temper, and the loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which you can show no more than equal right; and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog, then be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite.

• Abraham Lincoln in a letter to Captain James Cutts, Jr. after he’d been court-martialed for using unbecoming language in addressing a superior officer and for publicly derogating his superior’s accomplishments.