Abraham Lincoln

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

“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.”

“The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.”

“Repeal the Missouri Compromise - repeal all compromises - repeal the Declaration of Independence - repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It will be the abundance of man's heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.”

“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”

“To the best of my judgment, I have labored for, and not against, the Union. As I have not felt, so I have not expressed any harsh sentiment towards our Southern brethren. I have constantly declared, as I really believed, the only difference between them and us is the difference of circumstances.”

“No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.”

“It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.”

“Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.”

“No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.”

“If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.”

“I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end... 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.”

“For my part, I desire to see the time when education - and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and industry - shall become much more general than at present, and should be gratified to have it in my power to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might have a tendency to accelerate the happy period.”

“I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance.”

“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”

“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.”

“I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”

“It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles - the oppression of tyranny - to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them.”

“Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.”

“If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”

“These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.”

“When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.”

“Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.”

“Repeal the Missouri Compromise - repeal all compromises - repeal the Declaration of Independence - repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It will be the abundance of man's heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.”

“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.”

“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

“Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.”

“I never went to school more than six months in my life, but I can say this: that among my earliest recollections, I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand.”

“It would astonish if not amuse the older citizens to learn that I (a strange, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working at ten dollars per month) have been put down as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction.”

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.”

“Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever do so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and contented; and there is nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort.”

“I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.”

“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.”

“No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”

“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.”

“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.”

“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.”

“If the people of Utah shall peacefully form a State Constitution tolerating polygamy, will the Democracy admit them into the Union?”

“I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.”

“Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.”

“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.”

“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”

“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.”

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

“In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and to the young, it comes with bitterest agony because it takes them unawares. I have had experience enough to know what I say.”

“A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.”

“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”

“Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.”

“Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech.”

“Illinois surpasses every other spot of equal extent upon the face of the globe in fertility of soil and in the proportionable amount of the same which is sufficiently level for actual cultivation.”

“If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.”

“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.”

“The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every calling, is diligence.”

“In so far as the government lands can be disposed of, I am in favor of cutting up the wild lands into parcels so that every poor man may have a home.”

“I have great respect for the semicolon; it is a mighty handy little fellow.”

“Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.”

“Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.”

“I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”

“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

“I can make more generals, but horses cost money.”

“Standing as I do, with my hand upon this staff, and under the folds of the American flag, I ask you to stand by me so long as I stand by it.”

“My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.”

“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to”

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”

“We can succeed only by concert. It is not, 'Can any of us imagine better,' but, 'Can we all do better?'”

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

“Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.”

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

“I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.”

“That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.”

“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.”

“If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.”

“The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.”

“In so far as the government lands can be disposed of, I am in favor of cutting up the wild lands into parcels so that every poor man may have a home.”

“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.”

“These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people; and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel.”

“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”

“Everybody likes a compliment.”

“I pass my life in preventing the storm from blowing down the tent, and I drive in the pegs as fast as they are pulled up.”

“True patriotism is better than the wrong kind of piety.”

“Achievement has no color”

“Biographies, as generally written, are not only misleading but false... In most instances, they commemorate a lie and cheat posterity out of the truth.”

“I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where will you stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?”

“The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.”

“Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.”

“Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.”

“With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.”

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”

“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 may be on the Lord's side.”

“Gold is good in its place; but loving, brave, patriotic men are better than gold.”

“I understand a ship to be made for the carrying and preservation of the cargo, and so long as the ship can be saved, with the cargo, it should never be abandoned. This Union likewise should never be abandoned unless it fails and the possibility of its preservation shall cease to exist, without throwing passengers and cargo overboard.”

“Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed.”

“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.”

“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”

“It is rather for us here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”

“That I am not a member of any Christian church is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures, and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular.”

“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.”

“When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.”

“I can express all my views on the slavery question by quotations from Henry Clay.”

“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.”

“No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”

“I will prepare and some day my chance will come.”

“My father... removed from Kentucky to... Indiana, in my eighth year... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up... Of course when I came of age, I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher... but that was all.”

“If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.”

“In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and to the young, it comes with bitterest agony because it takes them unawares. I have had experience enough to know what I say.”

“If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts the country will be settled just as surely as all other difficulties of like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.”

“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.”

“The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”

“If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”

“If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.”

“Writing, the art of communicating thoughts to the mind through the eye, is the great invention of the world...enabling us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn, at all distances of time and space.”

“These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.”

“The legal right of the Southern people to reclaim their fugitives I have constantly admitted. The legal right of Congress to interfere with their institution in the states, I have constantly denied.”

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.”

“I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.”

“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.”

“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.”

“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

“I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”

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

“No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.”

“These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people; and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel.”

“Gold is good in its place; but loving, brave, patriotic men are better than gold.”

“We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.”

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

“In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once.”

“These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.”

“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.”

“Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it.”

“That our government should have been maintained in its original form from its establishment until now is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed and crumbled away. Through that period, it was felt by all to be an undecided experiment; now, it is understood to be a successful one.”

“Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.”

“I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where will you stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?”

“No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”

“When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion.”

“I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.”

“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.”

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”

“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”

“When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.”

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.”

“If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”

“Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.”

“The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”

“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”

“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.”

“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.”

“The assertion that 'all men are created equal' was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.”

“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 nation's wounds.”

“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”

“Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.”

“I can make more generals, but horses cost money.”

“In my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say in advance, there will be no blood shed unless it be forced upon the government. The government will not use force unless force is used against it.”

“To the best of my judgment, I have labored for, and not against, the Union. As I have not felt, so I have not expressed any harsh sentiment towards our Southern brethren. I have constantly declared, as I really believed, the only difference between them and us is the difference of circumstances.”

“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.”

“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. -Speech at Clinton, Illinois, September 8, 1854.”

“I go for all sharing the privileges of the government, who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).”

“If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”

“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.”

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.”

“My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.”

“When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.”

“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, can be engaged in.”

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

“Four score 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.”

“It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.”

“If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.”

“I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.”

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.”

“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.”

“Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”