Lincoln’s point is that when you want to change someone’s behavior, how you approach them matters as much as what you say. He argues that people are more likely to listen and reconsider their actions when they feel respected, rather than attacked.
The image of a “drop of honey” suggests gentleness, patience, and goodwill—small gestures of kindness that make persuasion easier. By contrast, “a gallon of gall” represents bitterness, scolding, or moral condemnation. Even if criticism is justified, Lincoln implies it often produces defensiveness and stubbornness instead of reform.
His emphasis on kind, unassuming persuasion reflects a practical understanding of human nature: most people resist being shamed or lectured, but may respond to encouragement, empathy, and calm reasoning. In this view, persuasion is not weakness or flattery; it is a deliberate strategy for achieving real change.
The quote also carries a broader lesson about leadership and public life. Lincoln suggests that lasting influence comes less from forceful denunciation than from building trust, appealing to shared values, and making it possible for others to change without losing dignity.
Temperance Address (Primary source)
Abraham Lincoln delivered his Temperance Address on February 22, 1842, in Springfield, Illinois, to the Washington Temperance Society, on the anniversary of George Washington’s birth.
More about “Temperance Address” →
“When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim, that a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall. So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.”
Abraham Lincoln
“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.”
— Abraham Lincoln Primary source“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
— Abraham Lincoln Primary source“Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.”
— Abraham Lincoln Primary source“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”
— Abraham Lincoln Primary sourceMore quotes by Abraham Lincoln →
“Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“The axiom that you learn more from your failures than your successes is trite but absolutely true.”
— Bill Gates Primary source“The wise man draws more advantage from his enemies, than the fool from his friends.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“No, that is the great fallacy; the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source