Abraham Lincoln Quotes

Its authors meant it to be ... a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack. ~ Abraham Lincoln

You cannot have the right to do what is wrong! ~ Abraham Lincoln

Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought a flower would grow. ~ Abraham Lincoln

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. ~ Abraham Lincoln

With this honor devolves upon you also a corresponding responsibility. As the country herein trusts you, so under God it will sustain you. ~ Abraham Lincoln

If 600,000 people have to die in order for the nation to live, then 600,000 people will die. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Labor is the great source from which nearly all, if not all, human comforts and necessities are drawn. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I destroy my enemy if I make him my friend. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory. ~ Abraham Lincoln

As a host, Lincoln was "never at a loss as to the subjects that please the different classes of visitors and there is a certain quaintness and originality about all he has to say, so that one cannot help feeling interested. His 'talk' is not brilliant," Villard observed. "His phrases are not ceremoniously set, but pervaded with a humorousness and, at times, with a grotesque joviality, that will always please. I think it would be hard to find one who tells better jokes, enjoys them better and laughs oftener than Abraham Lincoln. ~ Harold Holzer

[I]f the policy of the Government, upon vital questions affecting, the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their Government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I am absent altogether too much to be a suitable instructor for a law-student. When a man has reached the age that Mr. Widner has,and has already been doing for himself, my judgment is, that he reads the books for himself without an instructor. That is precisely the way I came to the law. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I think that if anything can be proved by natural theology, it is that slavery is morally wrong. God gave man a mouth to receive bread, hands to feed it, and his hand has a right to carry bread to his mouth without controversy. ~ Abraham Lincoln

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind. ~ Abraham Lincoln

There have been many amazing Presidents in American history, including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, all of whom I greatly admire. ~ Donald Trump

Most people are as happy as they want to be. ~ Abraham Lincoln

And this, too, shall pass away. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day. ~ Abraham Lincoln

We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the angels of our nature. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Over hundred years ago Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act. There was wide distribution of land and they didn't confiscate anyone's privately owned land ... We need an industrial Homestead Act. ~ Ronald Reagan

During the Civil War, on hearing complaints that Gen. Ulysses S. Grant drank alcohol to excess Find out what Grant drinks and send a barrel of it to each of my other generals! ~ Abraham Lincoln

Fondly do we hope, ferverently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back. ~ Abraham Lincoln

You have confidence in yourself, which is valuable, if not an indispensable quality. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Faith is not believing that God can, but that God will. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The land, the earth God gave to man for his home ... should never be the possession of any man, corporation, (or) society ... any more than the air or water. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln did not go to Gettysburg having commissioned a poll to find out what would sell in Gettysburg. There were no people with percentages for him, cautioning him about this group or that group or what they found in exit polls a year earlier. When will we have the courage of Lincoln? ~ Robert Coles

It must now atone in blood for its complicity in wickedness. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Remembering that Peter denied his Lord with an oath, after most solemnly protesting that he never would, I will not swear I will make no committals; but I do think I will not. ~ Abraham Lincoln

How many honest men do you know? Take the sinners away from the saints, you're lucky to end up with Abraham Lincoln. ~ Paul Newman

No policy that does not rest upon some philosophical public opinion can be permanently maintained. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Gratefully accepting the proffered honor, [to inscribe a new legal work to him] I give the leave, begging only that the inscription may be in modest terms, not representing me as a man of great learning, or a very extraordinary one in any respect. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The master not only governs the slave without his consent, but he governs him by a set of rules altogether different from those which he prescribes for himself. Allow ALL the governed an
equal voice in the government, and that, and that only, is self-government. ~ Abraham Lincoln

In 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, a bill opening one half million square miles of territory in the western United States for settlement. ~ Peter Agre

Gorbachev's stance contrasts admirably with the policy of the sainted Abraham Lincoln, who used massive force and mass murder to force the seceding Southern states to remain in the Union. ~ Murray Rothbard

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Had there not been a Mary Todd, there would not have been an Abraham Lincoln. She found him when he was a young lawyer and really a bumpkin. No one knew of him, but she recognized his brilliance. ~ Sally Field

I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity of popular
government; and to redress wrongs already long enough endured. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I believe I shall never be old enough to speak without embarrassment when I have nothing to talk about. ~ Abraham Lincoln

We must believe that He permits it [this war] for some wise purpose of his own, mysterious and unknown to us; and though with ourlimited understandings we may not be able to comprehend it, yet we cannot but believe, that he who made the world still governs it. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to
succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name, liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names, liberty and tyranny. The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Slavery in New Hampshire was never legally abolished, unless Abraham Lincoln did it. The State itself has not ever pronounced any emancipation edict. ~ Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Women are the only people I am afraid of who I never thought would hurt me ~ Abraham Lincoln

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

If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I can make a General in five minutes but a good horse is hard to replace. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them. ~ Abraham Lincoln

From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia ... could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Senator [Stephen] Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post offices, land offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I walk slowly, but I never walk backward. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Without the assistance of that divine being, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me, remain with you and be everywhere for good let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. ~ Abraham Lincoln

We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. Founder of the Republican Party. ~ Barack Obama

Important principles may and must be inflexible. ~ Abraham Lincoln

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

I have said a hundred times, and I have no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States, and to interfere with the question of slavery at all. I have said that always. ~ Abraham Lincoln

President Abraham Lincoln once remarked, "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." Few people have more power than an American president. Being the so-called leader ~ John C. Maxwell

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Much is being said about peace; and no man desires peace more ardently than I. Still I am yet unprepared to give up the Union fora peace which, so achieved, could not be of much duration. ~ Abraham Lincoln

My old father used to have a saying: If you make a bad bargain, hug it all the tighter. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races: that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. ~ Abraham Lincoln

It is not easy to go without-without physical gratifications or spiritual assurances or material possessions, but sometimes we must, since there is no guarantee of convenience written into our Christian covenant. We must work hard and do right, as Abraham Lincoln said, and sometime our chance will come. And when we've tried, really tried, and waited for what seemed never to be ours, then we may experience what the Savior experienced when 'the angels came, and ministered unto him.' (Matthew 4:11.) Surely that is worth waiting for. ~ Jeffrey R. Holland

Upon this subject, the habits of our whole species fall into three great classes
useful labour, useless labour and idleness. Of these the first only is meritorious; and to it all the products of labour rightfully belong; but the two latter, while they exist, are heavy pensioners upon the first, robbing it of a large portion of it's just rights. The only remedy for this is to, as far as possible, drive useless labour and idleness out of existence. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. ~ Abraham Lincoln

It is bad to be poor. I shall go to the wall for bread and meat, if I neglect my business this year as well as last. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good.
Abraham Lincoln, Original Quote ~ Seth Grahame-Smith

The perfection of our union, especially our commitment to equality of opportunity, has been a story of constant striving to live up to our Founding principles. This is what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said, 'In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.' ~ Paul Ryan

Then how about this: Remember Austin Gollaher, because what we do matters, even if we don't end up in history books. ~ Deborah Hopkinson

Tangible language, which often tells more falsehoods than truths. ~ Abraham Lincoln

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. ~ Abraham Lincoln

If you think you can slander a woman into loving you, or a man into voting for you, try it till you are satisfied. ~ Abraham Lincoln

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free
honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth ~ Abraham Lincoln

Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The political horizon looks dark and lowering; but the people, under Providence, will set all right. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Relying, as I do, upon the Almighty Power, and encouraged as I am by these resolutions which you have just read, with the support which I receive from Christian men, I shall not hesitate to use all the means at my control to secure the termination of this rebellion, and will hope for success. ~ Abraham Lincoln

The negative principle that no law is free law, is not much known except among lawyers. ~ Abraham Lincoln

You can't escape tomorrow's responsibilities by evading it today ~ Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln once walked down the street with his two sons, both of whom were crying. "What's the matter with you boys?" asked a passerby. "Exactly what is wrong with the whole world," said Lincoln. "I have three walnuts, and each boy wants two." ~ George Sweeting

Abraham Lincoln now set to work with a will to educate ~ Anonymous

We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. ~ Abraham Lincoln

It is almost always a mistake to mention Abraham Lincoln. He always steals the show. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

The man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am. None who would do more to preserve it. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all. ~ Abraham Lincoln

affection for her, of the compatibility ~ Abraham Lincoln

And, inasmuch [as] most good things are produced by labour, it follows that all such things of right belong to those whose labour has produced them. But it has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To [secure] to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government. ~ Abraham Lincoln

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

If I have to be typecast, I'd like it to be as Abraham Lincoln. ~ Sam Waterston

To most readers the word 'fiction' is an utter fraud. They are entirely convinced that each character has an exact counterpart in real life and that any small discrepancy with that counterpart is a simple error on the author's part. Consequently, they are totally at a loss if anything essential is altered. Make Abraham Lincoln a dentist, put the Gettysburg Address on his tongue, and nobody will recognize it. ~ Louis Auchincloss

Anxiety beclouds the future ... ~ Abraham Lincoln

Whether or not the world would be vastly benefited by a total banishment from it of all intoxicating drinks seems not now an open question. Three-fourths of mankind confess the affirmative with their tongues, and I believe all the rest acknowledge it in their hearts. ~ Abraham Lincoln

In our resolve to build a better world ... we seek to summon what Abraham Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. ~ James Earl Jones

The man who stands by and says nothing, when the peril of his government is discussed, can not be misunderstood. If not hindered, he is sure to help the enemy. ~ Abraham Lincoln