In The American Monthly Review of Reviews , it is suggested that the writings of William Herndon , Lincoln 's law partner , much influenced Lincoln . William Herndon wrote in Abraham Lincoln : The True Story of A Great Life that he had brought some of the sermons of abolitionist minister Theodore Parker to Lincoln , who had been moved by them . In a discussion `` A more probable origin of a famous Lincoln phrase , '' in The American Monthly Review of Reviews , Albert Shaw credits a correspondent with pointing out the writings of William Herndon , Lincoln 's law partner , who wrote in the 1888 work Abraham Lincoln : The True Story of A Great Life that he had brought to Lincoln some of the sermons of abolitionist minister Theodore Parker , of Massachusetts , and that Lincoln was moved by Parker 's use of this idea :