Abraham Lincoln Quotes

Must a government be too strong for the liberties of its people or too weak to maintain its own existence?

With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.

If i get 8 hours to cut a tree i'll
spend 7 hours to sharp my
knife.

Upon the subject of education ... I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in.

If I have one vice and I can call it nothing else it is not able to say 'no'.

You have more of a feeling of personal resentment than I have. Perhaps, I have too little of it, but I never thought it paid.

Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them.

We cannot escape history.

The strength of a nation lies in the homes of its people.

Kindness is the only service that will stand the storm of life and not wash out.

It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelity.

No country can sustain, in idleness, more than a small percentage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at something productive.

I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be an humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this his almost chosen people.

If my father's son can become President of these United States, then your father's son can become anything he wishes.

Gentlemen, why do you not laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me day and night, if I did not laugh, I should die.

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six hours sharpening the ax.

Singular indeed the people should be writhing under oppression and injury, and yet not one among them to be found, to raise the voice of complaint.

A drop of honey gathers more flies than a gallon of gall

I was born and have ever remaind [sic] in the most humble walks of life.

Shall we stop this bleeding?

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

The world shall know that I will keep my faith to friends and enemies, come what will.

Anything can be a bucket if you try hard enough and believe.

The only person who is a worse liar than a faith healer is his patient.

A half effort is a wasted effort.

Tell the truth and you won't have so much to remember

The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.

Your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other

As we keep or break the Sabbath Day we nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope by which man rises.

You can complain because a rose has thorns, or you can rejoice
Because the thorns have a rose.

Nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out.

To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.

May the Almighty grant that the cause of truth, justice, and humanity, shall in no wise suffer at my hands.

Marriage is neither heaven or hell, it is merely purgatory.

Well, I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals.

I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.

Character is the tree, reputation is the shadow.

Among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet.

I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it.

God must love the common man, he made so many of them.

I know the hole he went in at, but I can't tell you what hole he will come out of.

Always remember: Life is for enjoying.

All I ask for the negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy.

You cannot fail unless you quit.

Have I not destroyed my enemy when I have made him into my friend?

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.

The point - the power to hurt - of all figures lies in the truthfulness of their application.

Suspicions which may be unjust need not be stated.

A lawyer's time and advice are his(her) stock in trade.

I must keep some standard of principle fixed within myself.

Confused and Stunned, like a duck hit on the head.

The people know their rights, and they are never slow to assert and maintain them when they are invaded.

Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them.

To lead, you must touch men's hearts.

He who does something at the head of one Regiment, will eclipse him who does nothing at the head of a hundred.

I have simply tried to do what seemed best each day, as each day came.

You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union.

I always remember the prayers of my mother as they always forever.

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave in not "distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it.

Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite

The people when rightly and fully trusted will return the trust.

The worst thing you can do for those you love is the things they could and should do themselves.

I have talked with great men, and I do not see how they differ from others.

Do I not damage my enemies after i make them my close friends?

Money possesses no value to the state other than that given to it by circulation.

I am like a man so busy in letting rooms in one end of his house, that he can't stop to put out the fire that is burning the other.

[Uniting workers should not] lead to a war upon property, or the owners of property.

I am not in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office.

Nothing is stronger than gentleness.

The sense of obligation to continue is present in all of us. A duty to strive is the duty of us all. I felt a call to that duty.

Next to creating a life the finest thing a man can do is save one.

War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.

Among the friends of Union, there is great diversity of sentiment and of policy in regard to slavery and the African race among us.

Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.

Killing the dog does not cure the bite.

Cling to liberty and right; battle fro them; leed for them; die for them, if need be; and have confidence in God.

I never trusted a man who never smoked or drank.

Ready are we all to cry out and ascribe motives when our toes are pinched.

You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time.

Bring me Longstreet's head on a platter and the war will be over

The eyes of that species of extinct giant, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara as our eyes do now.

We must ask where we are and whither we are tending.

Cortissoz was art critic of the New York Herald Tribune.

None seemed to think the injury arose from the use of a bad thing but from the abuse of a very good thing

Four score and seven days is too long between massages

As the problems are new, we must disenthrall ourselves from the past.

It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness ...

The occasion is piled high with difficulty. We must rise to the occasion.

The human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control.

It is much easier to ride a horse in the direction it is going.

What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.

I walk slowly, but never backwards.

We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.

Your rights end where my nose begins.

Care for him who shall have borne the battle

Friends, I agree with you in Providence; but I believe in the Providence of the most men, the largest purse, and the longest cannon.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

Labor is superior to capital and precedes capital. Without labor, there is no capital.