The almighty dollar was his sun, and was mirrored in his heart.
He strangled all other emotions and hushed and stifled all nobler aspirations.

He grasped his riches tightly, till stricken by the scythe of death; when, in the twinkling of an eye, he was transformed from one of the richest men who ever lived in this world to one of the poorest souls that ever went out of it.
Lincoln always yearned for a rounded wholeness of character; and his fellow lawyers called him "perversely honest." Nothing could induce him to take the wrong side of a case, or to continue on that side after learning that it was unjust or hopeless.

After giving considerable time to a case in which he had received from a lady a retainer of two hundred dollars, he returned the money, saying: "Madam, you have not a peg to hang your case on." "But you have earned that money," said the lady.
"No, no," replied Lincoln, "that would not be right.

I can't take pay for doing my duty." Agassiz would not lecture at five hundred dollars a night, because he had no time to make money.

Charles Sumner, when a senator, declined to lecture at any price, saying that his time belonged to Massachusetts and the nation.