He said that he felt "like the boy that stumped his toe,—'it hurt too bad to laugh, and he was too big to cry'".

reported in John T. Morse, Jr., Abraham Lincoln (1893), vol. 1, p. 149, referring to Lincoln’s defeat by Senator Stephen Douglas in the 1858 senatorial campaign in Illinois. Also reported in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (November 22, 1862), p. 131, attributed to President Lincoln as a response to the Democratic candidate winning the governorship of New York election as "Somewhat like that boy in Kentucky, who stubbed his toe while running to see his sweetheart. The boy said he was too big to cry, and far too badly hurt to laugh"; quoted by Adlai Stevenson in his concession speech following the 1952 presidential election (November 5, 1952): "Someone asked me, as I came in, down on the street, how I felt, and I was reminded of a story that a fellow-townsman of ours used to tell — Abraham Lincoln. They asked him how he felt once after an unsuccessful election. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh". Reported in Walter Johnson, ed., The