When did Abraham Lincoln say be sure you put your feet in the right place then stand firm?

Answer 1

This statement was attributed to Lincoln and appears in several books, the most influential was the 1907 title, The Lincoln Story Book A Judicious Collection of the Best Stories and Anecdotes of the Great President, Many Appearing Here for the First Time in Book Form Compiled by Henry L. Williams, 1907, pub G.W. Dillingham, NY

However, the probable source for the quote is From Pioneer Home to the White House a biography of Abraham Lincoln published in 1882 and authored by the Rev. William Makepeace Thayer (1820-98) and published by Hurst and Company, NY. The title was one of a series of Logcabin to the White House biographies of various presidents. The quote is given as from the recollection of a Mrs. Rebecca Pomeroy (sic) Pomroy, who had worked as a prominent nurse in hospitals in Washington during the Civil War and also as a personal attendant on members of the Lincoln family. She died in 1884, so the information, if not fabricated, might be true. Pomroy ended her career in Massachusetts not far from Thayer. However, the historical accuracy of Thayer's texts are often dubious, he was not a professional historian, though he doesn't appear to have been deliberately dubious, but relied heavily on poor sources and fashioned something closer to hagiography for children than biography, including an earlier Lincoln biography for boys. Earlier in his career he did write several pamphlets of high historical quality. This quote may have come from the actual source given and it at least sounds like Lincoln. Additionally, it comes from a mundane incident, women trying to cross a muddy and water logged Washington street.

As an early reply to this query noted: the only problem is, there is no real evidence that he actually said it. Well, you know what they say, "you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the ..." well you know the rest (but Lincoln didn't because he never said that either).