My CMS The View from a New City

To all of my children and grandchildren whom I have discouraged from becoming lawyers, I submit the following quote in my defense. This is President Russell M. Nelsen quoting Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer and the president who presided over the civil war:

As we dread any disease that undermines the health of the body, so should we deplore contention, which is a corroding canker of the spirit. I appreciate the counsel of Abraham Lincoln, who said:

“Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention. … Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him.” (Letter to J. M. Cutts, 26 Oct. 1863, in Concise Lincoln Dictionary of Thoughts and Statements, comp. and arr. Ralph B. Winn, New York: New York Philosophical Library, 1959, p. 107.)