Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
What These Words Mean
There are seasons in your life when you feel like you are standing in a quiet hallway, knowing there are doors somewhere ahead, but none of them are open yet. The world around you still moves: people talking, phones buzzing, traffic humming outside. But inside, you are just waiting, wondering when it will finally be your turn.
Into that kind of moment, the quote says: "I will prepare and someday my chance will come."
The first part, "I will prepare," shows a person making a decision before anything obvious has changed. Nothing grand is happening here. Nobody is calling your name. It is just you choosing what you will do with the time when no one is watching. On the surface, it is about getting ready: studying, practicing, learning, sharpening skills. But underneath, it is about how you decide who you are when results are still far away.
You accept that you cannot control the timing, but you can control your readiness. You tell yourself, quietly: I will not waste this quiet season. I will build something in myself, even if nobody else sees it yet.
Think of a moment when you are working a job that does not feel like your big dream. Maybe you are closing up a small store at night, counting the register, the air smelling faintly of coffee and cleaning spray. You could just drag through the shift. Or you could start paying attention: noticing how people buy, how the manager solves problems, how schedules are made. You read on your break instead of scrolling. You treat each task as training for something that has not happened yet. That is "I will prepare" coming to life in an ordinary, almost invisible way.
The second part, "and someday my chance will come," turns your eyes toward a future moment that has not arrived yet. On the surface, it sounds hopeful: one day, an opportunity will appear, and you will step into it. But it is not a demand and not a guarantee. It is more like a quiet trust that life will open a door eventually, sometimes in a shape you do not expect.
Emotionally, this part says: if you keep showing up to the work of preparing, you increase the chances that when something does appear—an opening, a conversation, an invitation—you will recognize it and be able to carry it. You are not just waiting; you are waiting as someone who is in motion on the inside.
There is also a kind tension inside these words. They do not promise that your chance will look exactly like your dream. Sometimes it will be smaller, or stranger, or arrive at the wrong time. Sometimes, hard truth, chances do not come in the way or the number we feel we deserve. This phrase can feel thin in the face of unfair systems, bad luck, or serious barriers. Yet, even there, the decision "I will prepare" still matters. It might not bring the perfect outcome you imagine, but it always changes who you become and what you can handle when life does open something, even a narrow window.
What I love about this quote is that it moves your attention from chasing the spotlight to shaping the person who might someday stand in it. It suggests a quieter kind of confidence: not that you will get everything you want, but that you will be ready for what does come, and that this readiness is itself a kind of dignity.
The Background Behind the Quote
These words are widely attributed to Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, though, like many famous sayings, the exact original phrasing is hard to pin down with absolute certainty. Still, the spirit of the quote fits closely with how people remember his life and times.
Lincoln lived in the 19th century, in a country that was expanding, arguing, and breaking apart over issues like slavery, states’ rights, and the meaning of the nation itself. It was an era of rough beginnings and sudden rises: people coming from small, rural worlds and stepping into national roles. Formal education was uneven and often limited, so a lot of growth came from self-teaching, steady work, and long patience.
In that environment, the idea of preparing quietly before any clear chance appeared made deep sense. Political and social life moved through personal networks, slow letters, and local reputation. You could not simply leap onto a big stage overnight; you built toward it, often for years, mostly in obscurity.
The emotional tone of the era was also marked by uncertainty and struggle. Wars, economic downturns, and deep moral conflicts meant that no one could be sure when or how opportunities would show up, or how long they would last. A saying like "I will prepare and someday my chance will come" offered a way to live with that uncertainty: not by giving up, and not by demanding instant success, but by working steadily and trusting that effort and character might eventually meet the moment history offered.
About Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, who was born in 1809 and died in 1865, grew up in frontier conditions in Kentucky and Indiana before building his life and career in Illinois. He is remembered as the president who led the United States through the Civil War and played a central role in ending legalized slavery in the country.
His early life was marked by hard physical work, limited formal schooling, and a lot of self-education. He read by dim light, studied law on his own, and slowly built a reputation as a thoughtful lawyer and speaker. His rise to the presidency was not quick or smooth; it came after failures, political defeats, and long stretches when he was far from the center of power.
That history connects strongly to the spirit of the quote. Lincoln’s story reflects someone who spent years preparing—learning to argue clearly, to understand people, to think about justice—long before his "chance" appeared in the form of national leadership during a crisis. He seemed to believe that deep preparation of mind and character mattered as much as position or title.
When you read the quote in light of his life, it feels less like a motivational slogan and more like a lived approach: do the work now, quietly and thoroughly, so that if history or circumstance ever calls on you, you are able to answer with something more than wishful thinking—you answer with real readiness.
