Lincoln's advice, against the (excessive) use of invective: "If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great high road to his reason, and which, ...
precision, you shall no more be able to pierce him, than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw." — Abraham Lincoln, Address to the Washington Temperance Society of Springfield, Illinois, February 22, 1842