Hinkie's resignation letter used fake, wrong Abe Lincoln quotes

Not only did Sam Hinkie make headlines by stepping down from his post as general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, he announced his exit in style.

Hinkie's 13-page resignation letter included references to a number of luminary figures, including the 16th president of the United States, as he wrote:

A league with 30 intense competitors requires a culture of finding new, better ways to solve repeating problems. In the short term, investing in that sort of innovation often doesn't look like much progress, if any. Abraham Lincoln said "give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

However, Hinkie may have rushed into chopping down this particular tree, since Lincoln apparently didn't say that. Quote Investigator tried to track down the origin of the phrase in 2014 and couldn't trace it back to Lincoln, with the original citations coming from woodsmen and the metaphor used in a sermon. Its first documented association with Lincoln, who died in 1865, doesn't come until 1960 - in an ad for drilling equipment.

Hinkie went on to use another Lincoln quote, which is also inaccurate, but at least resembles something Lincoln said.

Lincoln said that to meet with the public "renewed in me my perceptions of responsibility and duty."

What Lincoln actually said, according to the "Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln":

I tell you, Major, that I call these receptions my public opinion baths; for I have but little time to read the papers and gather public opinion that way, and though they may not be pleasant in all their particulars, the effect, as a whole, is renovating and invigorating to my perceptions of responsibility and duty.

- With h/t to Philly Mag, SB Nation