In honor of President’s Day and Lincoln’s birthday, here are a few presidential thoughts past and present about the pursuit of knowledge, love and justice:

• “Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.”
  —John Adams from “A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law,” 1765
• “A diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.”
  —James Madison, 1825
• “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
  —Abraham Lincoln, in his second inaugural address, March 4, 1865
• “A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil.”
  —Grover Cleveland, in a letter accepting the nomination for president, August 18, 1884.
• “Our words must be judged by our deeds; and in striving for a lofty ideal we must use practical methods; and if we cannot attain all at one leap, we must advance towards it step by step, reasonably content so long as we do actually make some progress in the right direction.”
  —Theodore Roosevelt, in his address accepting the Nobel Peach Prize in Oslo, Norway, May 5, 1910
• “Art is not something just to be owned but something to be made: that it is the act of making and not the act of owning that is art. And knowing this they know also that art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all the living and creating peoples—all who make and build; and, most of all, the young and vigorous peoples who have made and built our present wide country.”
  —Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his address at the dedication of the National Gallery of Art, March 1941
  
• “Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and by social injustice.”
  —Harry S. Truman, in his address at the closing session of the United Nations Conference in San Francisco, June 26, 1945
• “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
  —John F. Kennedy, in his Inaugural address, January 20, 1961
• “Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty.”
  —Lyndon B. Johnson, in his remarks at the University of Michigan, May 22, 1964
• “Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.”
  —Jimmy Carter, at a meeting recognizing the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1978
• “I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there’s purpose and worth to each and every life.”
  —Ronald Reagan, in an address opening the Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California, 1991
• “We are a nation of communities, of thousands and tens of thousands of ethnic, religious, social, business, labor union, neighborhood, regional, and other organizations, all of them varied, voluntary, and unique … a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.”
  —George H. W. Bush, in his speech to accept the presidential nomination, 1988
• “All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart or whether we commit ourselves to an effort, a sustained effort to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children and to respect the dignity of all human beings.”
  —Barack Obama, in a speech at Cairo University, June 4, 2009