Wit & Attitude Quote by Thomas V. Smith

Lincoln’s martyrdom doesn’t just sanctify him; it democratizes him. Thomas V. Smith is doing something sly here: he reframes the familiar “great man” story as an argument about social psychology. The line “No man made great by death” nods to the way public memory fattens on tragedy, turning human leaders into polished monuments. But Smith’s real target is the audience watching that transformation. Lincoln’s posthumous grandeur, he suggests, becomes fuel for “lowly pride” because it allows ordinary people to imagine that their own plainness, their own awkwardness, might be misread genius in the making.

The cut is in the contrast: “offers more hope” versus “so simple as often to be dubbed a fool.” Smith wants you to feel how shallow the culture’s sorting mechanisms can be. The implication is that Lincoln’s “simplicity” was not a lack but a style: plain speech, unvarnished demeanor, a refusal of elite performance. While living, that register reads as incompetence to people trained to equate polish with intelligence. Death, with its soft-focus lighting, reverses the verdict.

Context matters: Lincoln is the archetype of American humility elevated to national myth, especially after assassination. Smith is pointing to the uneasy comfort in that myth. If a man mocked as a fool can become the moral yardstick of the nation, then the public’s contempt looks unreliable, and the “lowly” can keep their pride without needing pedigree. The quote is less about Lincoln’s greatness than about our craving for redemption narratives that flatter us.