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What has once happened, will invariably happen again, when the same circumstances which combined to produce it, shall again combine in the same way.
-Abraham Lincoln
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We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I think very much of the people, as an old friend said he thought of woman. He said when he lost his first wife, who had been a great help to him in his business, he thought he was ruinedthat he could never find another to fill her place. At length, however, he married another, who he found did quite as well as the first, and that his opinion now was that any woman would do well who was well done by. So I think of the whole people of this nationthey will ever do well if well done by. We will try to do well by them in all parts of the country, North and South, with entire confidence that all will be well with all of us.
-Abraham Lincoln
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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 themselvesin their separate, and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere. The desirable things which the individuals of a people can not do, or can not well do, for themselves, fall into two classes: those which have relation to wrongs, and those which have not. Each of these branch off into an infinite variety of subdivisions. The firstthat in relation to wrongsembraces all crimes, misdemeanors, and nonperformance of contracts. The other embraces all which, in its nature, and without wrong, requires combined action, as public roads and highways, public schools, charities, pauperism, orphanage, estates of the deceased, and the machinery of government itself. From this it appears that if all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need for government.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Has it popular sovereignty not got down as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death?
-Abraham Lincoln
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Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?
-Abraham Lincoln
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There is an important sense in which government is distinctive from administration. One is perpetual, the other is temporary and changeable. A man may be loyal to his government and yet oppose the particular principles and methods of administration.
-Abraham Lincoln
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While the people retain their virtue, and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government, in the short space of four years.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I am struggling to maintain the government, not to overthrow it. I am struggling especially to prevent others from overthrowing it.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth was in gold, and you had put it in the hands of Blondin to carry across the Niagara River on a rope, would you shake the cable, or keep shouting out to himBlondin, stand up a little straighterBlondin, stoop a little morego a little fasterlean a little more to the northlean a little more to the south? No, you would hold your breath as well as your tongue, and keep your hands off until he was safe over. The Government are carrying an immense weight. Untold treasures are in their hands. They are doing the very best they can. Dont badger them. Keep silence, and well get you safe across.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I know that the LORD is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the LORDS side.
-Abraham Lincoln
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When someone asked Abraham Lincoln, after he was elected president, what he was going to do about his enemies, he replied, I am going to destroy them. I am going to make them my friends.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friendsthose whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the workwho do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even, hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now?now when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not failif we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise councils may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.
-Abraham Lincoln
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This is a world of compensation; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.
-Abraham Lincoln
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You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you cant fool all of the people all the time.
-Abraham Lincoln
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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. Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.
-Abraham Lincoln
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We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
-Abraham Lincoln
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At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I am superstitious. I have scarcely known a party, preceding an election, to call in help from the neighboring states, but they lost the state.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I have very large ideas of the mineral wealth of our Nation. I believe it practically inexhaustible. It abounds all over the western country, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, and its development has scarcely commenced. Immigration, which even the war has not stopped, will land upon our shores hundred of thousands more per year from overcrowded Europe. I intend to point them to the gold and silver that waits for them in the West. Tell the miners from me, that I shall promote their interests to the utmost of my ability; because their prosperity is the prosperity of the Nation, and we shall prove in a very few years that we are indeed the treasury of the world.
-Abraham Lincoln
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All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.
-Abraham Lincoln
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He said that he felt like the boy that stumped his toe,it hurt too bad to laugh, and he was too big to cry.
-Abraham Lincoln
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As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by interest, and next no one left to borrow fromso must it be with a government.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Dear Madam,I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom. Yours, very sincerely and respectfully.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Dont interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
-Abraham Lincoln
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To give the victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which that struggle was made, and 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, for perpetuating the object of that great struggle.
-Abraham Lincoln
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A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolvedI do not expect the house to fallbut I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to! I would to God that such a system prevailed all over the world.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other mans rightsthat each community, as a State, has a right to do exactly as it pleases with all the concerns within that State that interfere with the right of no other State, and that the general government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Singular indeed that the people should be writhing under oppression and injury, and yet not one among them to be found, to raise the voice of complaint.
-Abraham Lincoln
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This extraordinary war in which we are engaged falls heavily upon all classes of people, but the most heavily upon the soldier. For it has been said, all that a man hath will he give for his life; and while all contribute of their substance the soldier puts his life at stake, and often yields it up in his countrys cause. The highest merit, then, is due to the soldier.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Honor to the Soldier, and Sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his countrys cause. Honor also to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field, and serves, as he best can, the same causehonor to him, only less than to him, who braves, for the common good, the storms of heaven and the storms of battle.
-Abraham Lincoln
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The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Whenever I hear any one, arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of kingcraft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you willwhether it comes from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. Weeven we herehold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the freehonorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.
-Abraham Lincoln
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It is my ambition and desire to so administer the affairs of the government while I remain President that if at the end I have lost every other friend on earth I shall at least have one friend remaining and that one shall be down inside me.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
-Abraham Lincoln
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You may burn my body to ashes, and scatter them to the winds of heaven; you may drag my soul down to the regions of darkness and despair to be tormented forever; but you will never get me to support a measure which I believe to be wrong, although by doing so I may accomplish that which I believe to be right.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I dont believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.
-Abraham Lincoln
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If people see the Capitol going on, it is a sign we intend the Union shall go on.
-Abraham Lincoln
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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; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.
-Abraham Lincoln
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In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Property is the fruit of laborproperty is desirableis a positive good in the world. That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprize. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Next came the Patent laws. These began in England in 1624; and, in this country, with the adoption of our constitution. Before then these?, any man might instantly use what another had invented; so that the inventor had no special advantage from his own invention. The patent system changed this; secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things.
-Abraham Lincoln
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My friends I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail.
-Abraham Lincoln
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You have heard the story, havent you, about the man who was tarred and feathered and carried out of town on a rail? A man in the crowd asked him how he liked it. His reply was that if it was not for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk.
-Abraham Lincoln
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In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, he the president is the representative of the people. He is elected by them, as well as congress is. But can he, in the nature of things, know the wants of the people, as well as three hundred other men, coming from all the various localities of the nation? If so, where is the propriety of having a congress?
-Abraham Lincoln
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Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purposeand you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, I see no probability of the British invading us but he will say to you be silent; I see it, if you dont. The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.
-Abraham Lincoln
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The President to-night has a dream:He was in a party of plain people, and, as it became known who he was, they began to comment on his appearance. One of them said:He is a very common-looking man. The President replied:The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason he makes so many of them.
-Abraham Lincoln
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With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nations wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphanto do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
-Abraham Lincoln
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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, postoffices, landoffices, 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
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The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
-Abraham Lincoln
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We cannot ask a man what he will do, and if we should, and he should answer us, we should despise him for it. Therefore we must take a man whose opinions are known.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I have got you together to hear what I have written down. I do not wish your advice about the main matterfor that I have determined for myself.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I could as easily bail out the Potomac River with a teaspoon as attend to all the details of the army.
-Abraham Lincoln
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1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. 2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. 3. You cannot help small men up by tearing big men down. 4. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. 5. You cannot lift the wage-earner up by pulling the wage-payer down. 6. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. 7. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. 8. You cannot establish sound social security on borrowed money. 9. You cannot build character and courage by taking away a mans initiative and independence. 10. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
-Abraham Lincoln
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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 mens labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same nameliberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatable namesliberty and tyranny.
-Abraham Lincoln
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The Democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another mans right of property. Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.
-Abraham Lincoln
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What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If he has a place and work for meand I think He hasI believe I am ready.
-Abraham Lincoln
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If the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, 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. Nor is there, in this view, any assault upon the court, or the judges. It is a duty, from which they may not shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them; and it is no fault of theirs, if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that the working men are the basis of all governments, for the plain reason that they are the more numerous, and as you added that those were the sentiments of the gentlemen present, representing not only the working class, but citizens of other callings than those of the mechanic, I am happy to concur with you in these sentiments, not only of the native born citizens, but also of the Germans and foreigners from other countries.
-Abraham Lincoln
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In the early days of the world, the Almighty said to the first of our race In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread; and since then, if we except the light and the air of heaven, no good thing has been, or can be enjoyed by us, without having first cost labour. 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 labored, 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
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It is better, then, to save the work while it is begun. You have done the labor; maintain itkeep it. If men choose to serve you, go with them; but as you have made up your organization upon principle, stand by it; for, as surely as God reigns over you, and has inspired your mind, and given you a sense of propriety, and continues to give you hope, so surely will you still cling to these ideas, and you will at last come back after your wanderings, merely to do your work over again.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
-Abraham Lincoln
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The most notable feature of a disturbance in your city last summer, was the hanging of some working people by other working people. It should never be so. The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Action(s)
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I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
-Abraham Lincoln
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As our case is new, we must think and act anew.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Agriculture
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This leads to the further reflection, that no other human occupation opens so wide a field for the profitable and agreeable combination of labor with cultivated thought, as agriculture. I know of nothing so pleasant to the mind, as the discovery of anything which is at once new and valuable -- nothing which so lightens and sweetens toil, as the hopeful pursuit of such discovery. And how vast, and how varied a field is agriculture, for such discovery. The mind, already trained to thought, in the country school, or higher school, cannot fail to find there an exhaustless source of profitable enjoyment.
-Abraham Lincoln, Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, September 30, 1859
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Alcohol/Alcoholism
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I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class. There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Ambition
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Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Ancestry, Ancestors
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I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Appearance
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The Lord prefers common looking people. That is why he made so many of them.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Every person is responsible for his own looks after 40.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Belief
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You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Capitalism
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These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Character
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Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
-Abraham Lincoln
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We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Charity
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With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work ;we are in.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Choice
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I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Coffee (or Tea)
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If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
-Abraham Lincoln, (attributed, no source)
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Common Sense
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When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Communication
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He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I ever met.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I fear explanations explanatory of things explained.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Confidence
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If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Conflict
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It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time and will ever continue to struggle. It is the same spirit that says, You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Conservatism
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What is conservatism? It is not adherence to the old and tried, but against the new and untried?
-Abraham Lincoln
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Control
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Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
-Abraham Lincoln
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What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Corporations
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I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
-Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Jack London's The Iron Heel
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Crime
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He reminds me of the man who murdered both his parents, and then when the sentence was about to be pronounced, pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was orphan.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Criticism
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If I care to listen to every criticism, let alone act on them, then this shop may as well be closed for all other businesses. I have learned to do my best, and if the end result is good then I do not care for any criticism, but if the end result is not good, then even the praise of ten angels would not make the difference.
-Abraham Lincoln
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If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Crying
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I laugh because I must not cry. That is all. That is all.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Danger
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I destroy my enemy when I make him my friend.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Death
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Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Deception/Lying
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If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
-Abraham Lincoln
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No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Democracy
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No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
-Abraham Lincoln
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As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
-Abraham Lincoln
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...Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
-Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863
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Determination
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Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Differences
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-Abraham Lincoln, attributed
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Dogs
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How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Dreams
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I dream of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Drinking
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Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.
-Abraham Lincoln
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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
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Duty
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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.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Education
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Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in. That everyone may receive at least a moderate education appears to be an objective of vital importance.
-Abraham Lincoln
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The old general rule was that educated people did not perform manual labor. They managed to eat their bread, leaving the toil of producing it to the uneducated. This was not an insupportable evil to the working bees, so long as the class of drones remained very small. But now, especially in these free States, nearly all are educated--quite too nearly all, to leave the labor of the uneducated, in any wise adequate to the support of the whole. It follows from this that henceforth educated people must labor. Otherwise, education itself would become a positive and intolerable evil. No country can sustain, in idleness, more than a small percentage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at something productive.
-Abraham Lincoln, Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, September 30, 1859
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Emotions
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He who molds the public sentiment... makes statues and decisions possible or impossible to make.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Enemy, Enemies
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The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Enjoyment
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People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Enthusiasm
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When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Equality
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Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Excellence
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I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Experience
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We know nothing of what will happen in future, but by the analogy of experience.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Face, Faces
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Every man over forty is responsible for his face.
-Abraham Lincoln
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If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
-Abraham Lincoln
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Failure
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My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Faith
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Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
-Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union Address, New York, New York, February 27, 1860
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Fear
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A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Feelings
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When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that's my religion.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Fellowship
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To correct the evils, great and small, which spring from want of sympathy and from positive enmity among strangers, as nations or as individuals, is one of the highest functions of civilization.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Fight, Fighting
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No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating of his temper and loss of self control. Yield larger things to which you can show no more than equal right; and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own. 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.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Fools, Foolishness
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Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Freedom
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Freedom is the last, best hope of earth.
-Abraham Lincoln
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The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, the Declaration of Independence.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Friends
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I desire to so conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I don't like that man. I'm going to have to get to know him better.
-Abraham Lincoln
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A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gal. So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey which catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the highroad to his reason.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
-Abraham Lincoln
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Future, The
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The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Genius
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Towering genius disdains a beaten path.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Glory
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Military glory --the attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood.
-Abraham Lincoln
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God
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It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Friends, I agree with you in Providence; but I believe in the Providence of the most men, the largest purse, and the longest cannon.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Greatness & Great Things
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Whatever you are, be a good one.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Growth
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I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Happiness
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People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.
-Abraham Lincoln
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History
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Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity; and none will do it enthusiastically. Posterity has done nothing for us; and theorize on it as we may, practically we shall do very little for it, unless we are made to think we are at the same time doing something for ourselves.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Hope
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With high hope for the future, no prediction is ventured.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Horses, Horse Racing
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I can make a General in five minutes but a good horse is hard to replace.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Humanity
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God must love the common man, he made so many of them.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Judging, Judgment
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There are few things wholly evil or wholly good. Almost everything, especially of government policy, is an inseparable compound of the two, so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.
-Abraham Lincoln
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If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Justice
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The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Laughter
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With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Law
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A jury too often has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap. Let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges. Let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs. Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in the courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Leadership
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Public sentiment is everything, with it nothing can fail, without it nothing can succeed.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Legacy
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Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the last generation.
-Abraham Lincoln, Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862
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Life
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And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Listening
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When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Marriage
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Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I have come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason, I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Mercy
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I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
-Abraham Lincoln, speech in Washington D.C., 1865
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Military, the
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But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Tell me what brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Mother
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All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Nature
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I cannot imaging anyone looking at the sky and denying God.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Ordinary
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Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Patriotism
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We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
-Abraham Lincoln, First inaugural address, March 4, 1861
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Peace
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Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Persistence
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I am not concerned that you have fallen -- I am concerned that you arise.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Persuasion
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You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.
-Abraham Lincoln
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If you wish to win a man over to your ideas, first make him your friend.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Planning
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We must ask where we are and whither we are tending.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Politics
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Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Poverty
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Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Power
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Must a government be too strong for the liberties of its people or too weak to maintain its own existence?
-Abraham Lincoln
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Praise
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Everybody likes a compliment.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Presidency
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The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Procrastination
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Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Progress
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I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.
-Abraham Lincoln
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I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back.
-Abraham Lincoln
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The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Promises
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We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Property
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Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; it is a positive good in the world.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Public
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A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Publicity
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What kills the skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Reading
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The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Reality
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The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Reason
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If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what you will, is the great high-road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Recognition
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Avoid popularity if you would have peace.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Resilience
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It is said an eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him with the words, 'And this, too, shall pass away.' How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!
-Abraham Lincoln
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Respect
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Having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Responsibility
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You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Reverence
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Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap -- let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs; -- let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.
-Abraham Lincoln, Lyceum Address, January 27, 1838
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Revolution
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This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can excercise their constitutional right of amending it, or excercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Self Respect
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Seriously, I do not think I fit for the presidency.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Silence
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To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Slavery
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Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Slavery is founded on the selfishness of man's nature -- opposition to it on his love of justice. These principles are in eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.
-Abraham Lincoln
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In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Success & Failure
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Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Tact, Tactfulness
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Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Talent
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If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Thought
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When I'm getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds thinking about him and what he is going to say.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Time
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Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Truth
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Let the people know the truth and the country is safe.
-Abraham Lincoln
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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 the best life that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right and part from him when he goes wrong.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Unity
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A house divided against itself cannot stand -- I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Victory
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Beware of rashness, but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victories.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Virtue
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It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Voting
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The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet.
-Abraham Lincoln
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If elected I shall be thankful; if not, it will be all the same.
-Abraham Lincoln
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War
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Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.
-Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
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Wealth
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That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Will, Willpower
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Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Work
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My father taught me to work, but he did not teach me to love it.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged.
-Abraham Lincoln
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If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my ax.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Worry
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Do not worry; eat three square meals a day; say your prayers; be courteous to your creditors; keep your digestion good; exercise; go slow and easy. Maybe there are other things your special case requires to make you happy, but my friend, these I reckon will give you a good lift. -
-Abraham Lincoln
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Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.
-Abraham Lincoln
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Books by and about Abraham Lincoln
