„Wenn nur die Lüge uns retten kann, so ist es aus, so sind wir verloren.“

Die Bürgschaft
Gedichte und Balladen, An die Freude (1785), Die Bürgschaft (1798)

in einem Brief an Horace Greeley vom 22. August 1862. Zitiert von Berthold Seewald Wie Abraham Lincoln die Sklavenhalter provozierte http://www.welt.de/kultur/history/article10708318/Wie-Abraham-Lincoln-die-Sklavenhalter-provozierte.html?wtmc=RSS.Kultur.Geschichte. Welt Online, 5. November 2010.
Original englisch: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union." - Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 5 http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;type=simple;rgn=div1;q1=greeley;singlegenre=All;view=text;subview=detail;sort=occur;idno=lincoln5;node=lincoln5%3A848

Diesen Ausspruch schreibt ihm fälschlich Mark Twain in seiner Autobiographie zu. Tatsächlich von Leonard Henry Courtney 1895. york.ac.uk http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/lies.htm
Original engl.: "There are three kinds of lies - lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Fälschlich zugeschrieben

To My Fellow-Disciples at Saratoga Springs, The National Review, London, No. 26, S. 21-26, 1895, S. 25; häufig fälschlich Benjamin Disraeli zugeschrieben
Original engl.: "There are three kinds of lies - lies, damned lies, and statistics."