Where did Lincoln say you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time?

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2026-09-05 23:50

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Reported to have been said in one of his speeches at Clinton, Illinois, on 2nd September 1858, but there is no contemporary evidence confirming that (like many other one-liners attributed to Lincoln) - see, for example, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3, p. 81 (ed. Roy P. Basler). But this line has also been attributed to P. T. Barnum and (less commonly) to others.

The inversion that "You can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time" has also been attributed to Lincoln, amongst others.

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