Abraham Lincoln is one of the most quoted and influential presidents in American history. He is known for his wisdom, courage, and compassion. Here’s the best Abraham Lincoln quotes.
Abraham Lincoln – Politician
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States. He led the country through some of its most difficult times including the American Civil War.
Lincoln is most noted for his leadership and his speeches. He is also one of the most quoted presidents in American history.
Famous Abraham Lincoln Quotes
Important principles may and must be inflexible.
– Abraham Lincoln
No policy that does not rest upon philosophical public opinion can be permanently maintained.
– Abraham Lincoln
I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling.
– Abraham Lincoln
Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much.
– Abraham Lincoln
The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
– Abraham Lincoln
You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm .
– Abraham Lincoln
Every man, black, white or yellow, has a mouth to be fed and two hands with which to feed it – and that bread should be allowed to go to that mouth without controversy. Work, work, work, is the main thing. I am not ashamed to confess that twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flatboat – just what might happen to any poor man’s son. I want every man to have a chance.
– Abraham Lincoln
If slavery is right, it ought to be extended; if not, it ought to be restricted – there is no middle ground.
– Abraham Lincoln
Nowhere in the world is presented a government of so much liberty and equality. To the humblest and poorest amongst us are held out the highest privileges and positions. The present moment finds me at the White House, yet there is as good a chance for your children as there was for my father’s.
– Abraham Lincoln
I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.
– Abraham Lincoln
Related: 300+ Courage Quotes To Help You Face Fears And Overcome Adversity
Most governments have been based, practically, on the denial of equal rights of men…ours began, by affirming those rights. They said, some men are too ignorant, and vicious, to share in government. Possibly so, said we; and, by your system, you would always keep them ignorant, and vicious, to share in government. Possibly so, said we; and, by your system, you would always keep them ignorant, and vicious. We proposed to give all a chance; and we expected the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant wiser; and all better, and happier together.
– Abraham Lincoln
This is essentially a People’s contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men — to lift artificial weights from all shoulders — to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all — to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.
– Abraham Lincoln
The restoration of the Rebel States to the Union must rest upon the principle of civil and political equality of both races; and it must be sealed by general amnesty.
– Abraham Lincoln
Broken eggs cannot be mended; but Louisiana has nothing to do now but take her place in the Union as it was, barring the already broken eggs.
– Abraham Lincoln
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 Lord’s side.
– Abraham Lincoln
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, everywhere.
– Abraham Lincoln
Of our political revolution of ’76, we all are justly proud. It has given us a degree of political freedom, far exceeding that of any other nation of the earth. In it the world has found a solution of the long mooted problem, as to the capability of man to govern himself. In it was the germ which has vegetated, and still is to grow and expand into the universal liberty of mankind.
– Abraham Lincoln
Best Abraham Lincoln Quotes
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’s 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
Understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them.
– Abraham Lincoln
To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible, is a worthy object of any good government.
– Abraham Lincoln
Others have been made fools of by the girls; but this can never be with truth said of me. I most emphatically, in this instance, made a fool of myself.
– Abraham Lincoln
Let 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
Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.
– Abraham Lincoln
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
I believe the declaration that ‘all men are created equal’ is the great fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest.
– Abraham Lincoln
I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice; and have received a great deal of kindness, not quite free from ridicule. I am used to it.
– Abraham Lincoln
I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered, or my term expires, or Congress or the country forsakes me.
– Abraham Lincoln
Let us neither express nor cherish any hard feelings toward any citizen who by his vote has differed with us. Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling.
– Abraham Lincoln
My purpose is to be, in my action, just and constitutional; and yet practical, in performing the important duty, with which I am charged, of maintaining the unity, and the free principles of our common country.
– Abraham Lincoln
The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party – and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.
– Abraham Lincoln
Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.
– Abraham Lincoln
Let none falter, who thinks he is right, and we may succeed.
– Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln Inspiring Quotes
To the best of my judgment I have labored for, and not against the Union.
– Abraham Lincoln
Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US 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
In very truth he was, the noblest work of God – an honest man.
– Abraham Lincoln
If a man will stand up and assert, and repeat and re-assert, that two and two do not make four, I know nothing in the power of argument that can stop him.
– Abraham Lincoln
Let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children’s liberty.
– Abraham Lincoln
The legitimate object of government is ‘to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves’.
– Abraham Lincoln
Still, to use a coarse, but an expressive figure, broken eggs can not be mended. I have issued the emancipation proclamation, and I can not retract it.
– Abraham Lincoln
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; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.
– Abraham Lincoln
I planted myself upon the truth, and the truth only, so, as far I knew it, or could be brought to know it.
– Abraham Lincoln
How miserably things seem to be arranged in this world. If we have no friends, we have no pleasure; and if we have them, we are sure to lose them, and be doubly pained by the loss.
– Abraham Lincoln
In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares.
– Abraham Lincoln
If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions.
– Abraham Lincoln
He who does something at the head of one Regiment, will eclipse him who does nothing at the head of a hundred.
– Abraham Lincoln
When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim, that a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.
– Abraham Lincoln
The world is agreed that labor is the source from which human wants are mainly supplied. There is no dispute upon that point.
– Abraham Lincoln
If a man says he knows a thing, then he must show how he knows it.
– Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln Quotes
Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.
– Abraham Lincoln
On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we have been. When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that all men are created equal a self evident truth; but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim a self evident lie.
– Abraham Lincoln
I would like to speak in terms of praise due to the many brave officers and soldiers who have fought in the cause of the war.
– Abraham Lincoln
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
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
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.
– Abraham Lincoln
Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.
– Abraham Lincoln
You dislike the emancipation proclamation; and, perhaps, would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional – I think differently.
– Abraham Lincoln
A fair examination of history has seemed to authorize a belief that the past action and influences of the Untied States were generally regarded as having been beneficent towards mankind.
– Abraham Lincoln
Bad promises are better broken than kept.
– Abraham Lincoln
Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief — resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer.
– Abraham Lincoln
What I did, I did after very full deliberation, and under a heavy and solemn sense of responsibility. I can only trust in God that I have made no mistake.
– Abraham Lincoln
And then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation…
– Abraham Lincoln
I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.
– Abraham Lincoln
We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.
– Abraham Lincoln
In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book.
– Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln Sayings
Let us then turn this government back into the channel in which the framers of the Constitution originally placed it.
– Abraham Lincoln
I know not how to aid you, save in the assurance of one of mature age, and much severe experience, that you can not fail, if you resolutely determine, that you will not.
– Abraham Lincoln
In this troublesome world, we are never quite satisfied.
– Abraham Lincoln
If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.
– Abraham Lincoln
And now, beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward, and give us victories.
– Abraham Lincoln
The ant who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest will furiously defend the fruit of his labor against whatever robber assails him. So plain that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever toiled for a master does constantly know that he is wronged.
– Abraham Lincoln
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? IS there any better ore qual hope in the world?
– Abraham Lincoln
I believe this Government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
– Abraham Lincoln
When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government – that is despotism.
– Abraham Lincoln
I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway 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. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.
– Abraham Lincoln
Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life.
– Abraham Lincoln
Let North and South – let all Americans – let all lovers of liberty everywhere join in the great and good work.
– Abraham Lincoln
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.
– Abraham Lincoln
Holding it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.
– Abraham Lincoln
It is as much the duty of government to render prompt justice against itself, in favor of citizens, as it is to administer the same between private individuals.
– Abraham Lincoln
I made a point of honor and conscience in all things to stick to my word, especially if others had been induced to act upon it.
– Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln’s Quotes
I freely acknowledge myself the servant of the people, according to the bond of service — the United States Constitution; and that, as such, I am responsible to them.
– Abraham Lincoln
I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind; and therefore, I will simply say that I am for those means which will give the greatest good to the greatest numbers.
– Abraham Lincoln
I wish to do justice to all.
– Abraham Lincoln
There are two ways of establishing a proposition. One is by trying to demonstrate it upon reason; and the other is to show that great men in former times have thought so and so, and thus to pass it by the weight of pure authority.
– Abraham Lincoln
Related: Weightlifting Quotes
It is not merely for to-day, but for all time to come that we should perpetuate for our children’s children this great and free government, which we have enjoyed all our lives.
– Abraham Lincoln
You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union.
– Abraham Lincoln
We do not want to dissolve the Union; you shall not.
– Abraham Lincoln
Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature — opposition to it is in 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. Repeal the Missouri Compromise — repeal all compromises — repeal the declaration of independence — repeal all past history, you still can not repeal human nature. It still 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.
– Abraham Lincoln
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 any denomination of Christians in particular.
– Abraham Lincoln
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) 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. 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
I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.
– Abraham Lincoln
I have very earnestly urged the slave-states to adopt emancipation; and it ought to be, and is an object with me not to overthrow, or thwart what any of them may in good faith do, to that end.
– Abraham Lincoln
Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces judicial decisions. He makes possible the enforcement of them, else impossible.
– Abraham Lincoln
The people – the people – are the rightful masters of both congresses and courts – not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.
– Abraham Lincoln
I believe it is an established maxim im morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.
– Abraham Lincoln
I have said nothing but I am willing to live by, and, in the pleasure of Almighty God, die by.
– Abraham Lincoln
Famous Quotes by Abraham Lincoln
Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
– Abraham Lincoln
As labor is the common burden of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burden on the shoulders of others is the greatest durable curse of the race.
– Abraham Lincoln
The struggle of today, is not altogether for today – it is for a vast future also.
– Abraham Lincoln
In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.
– Abraham Lincoln
All creation is a mine, and every man a miner.
– Abraham Lincoln
The slave-breeders and slave-traders, are a small, odious and detested class, among you; and yet in politics, they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters, as you are the master of your own negroes.
– Abraham Lincoln
My opinion is that no state can, in any way lawfully, get out of the Union, without the consent of the others; and that it is the duty of the President, and other government functionaries to run the machine as it is.
– Abraham Lincoln
I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has.
– Abraham Lincoln
It is said that we have the best government the world ever knew, and I am glad to meet you, the supporters of that government.
– Abraham Lincoln
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 all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.
– Abraham Lincoln
I think we have fairly entered upon a durable struggle as to whether this nation is to ultimately become all slave or all free, and though I fall early in the contest, it is nothing if I shall have contributed, in the least degree, to the final rightful result.
– Abraham Lincoln
Speech before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, September 30, 1859
– Abraham Lincoln
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and defend it’.
– Abraham Lincoln
War at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.
– Abraham Lincoln
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle – the sheet anchor of American republicanism.
– Abraham Lincoln
Now, as to the young men. You must not wait to be brought forward by the older men. For instance, do you suppose that I should have ever got into notice if I had waited to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men?
– Abraham Lincoln
Great Quotes by Abraham Lincoln
My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. 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 the Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.
– Abraham Lincoln
We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed.
– Abraham Lincoln
I do not mean to say that this government is charged with the duty of redressing or preventing all the wrongs in the world; but I do think that it is charged with the duty of preventing and redressing all wrongs which are wrongs to itself.
– Abraham Lincoln
Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.
– Abraham Lincoln
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came …. Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
– Abraham Lincoln
Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties. And not to Democrats alone do I make this appeal, but to all who love these great and true principles.
– Abraham Lincoln
Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope.
– Abraham Lincoln
Men who, by fighting our battles, bear the chief burthen of saving our country.
– Abraham Lincoln
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
– Abraham Lincoln
Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the almighty and them.
– Abraham Lincoln
It really hurts me very much to suppose that I have wronged anybody on earth.
– Abraham Lincoln
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.
– Abraham Lincoln
According to our ancient faith, the just powers of governments are derived from the consent of the governed.
– Abraham Lincoln
A man watches his pear-tree day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process and he may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe pear at the length falls into his lap.
– Abraham Lincoln
I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects—certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.
– Abraham Lincoln
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 disentrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
– Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln Quotes
I hold if the Almighty had ever made a set of men that should do all the eating and none of the work, he would have made them with mouths only and no hands, and if he had ever made another class that he had intended should do all the work and none of the eating, eh would have made them without mouths and with all hands.
– Abraham Lincoln
In leaving the people’s business in their own hands, we cannot be wrong.
– Abraham Lincoln
I say ‘try’; if we never try, we shall never succeed.
– Abraham Lincoln
Let bygones be bygones; let past differences as nothing be.
– Abraham Lincoln
Stand with anybody that stands RIGHT. Stand with him while he is right and PART with him when he goes wrong.
– Abraham Lincoln
To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.
– Abraham Lincoln
We shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.
– Abraham Lincoln
Nevertheless, amid the greatest difficulties of my Administration, when I could not see any other resort, I would place my whole reliance on God, knowing that all would go well, and that He would decide for the right.
– Abraham Lincoln
The inclination to exchange thoughts with one another is probably an original impulse of our nature.
– Abraham Lincoln
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.
– Abraham Lincoln
Welcome, or unwelcome, agreeable, or disagreeable, whether this shall be an entire slave nation, is the issue before us.
– Abraham Lincoln
It is a cheering thought throughout life that something can be done to ameliorate the condition of those who have been subject to the hard usage of the world.
– Abraham Lincoln
If you intend to go to work, there is no better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to go to work, you can not get along anywhere.
– Abraham Lincoln
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
– Abraham Lincoln
With us every soldier is a man of character, and must be treated with more consideration than is customary in Europe.
– Abraham Lincoln
There is more involved in this contest than is realized by eery one. There is involved in this struggle the question whether your children and my children shall enjoy the privileges we have enjoyed.
– Abraham Lincoln
Quotations by Abraham Lincoln
Thoughtful men must feel that the fate of civilization upon this continent is involved in the issue of our contest.
– Abraham Lincoln
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
– Abraham Lincoln
I have found that when one is embarrassed, usually the shortest way to get through with it is to quit talking or thinking about it, and go at something else.
– Abraham Lincoln
And 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
It has long been a grave question whether any government, not too strong for the liberties of its people, can be strong enough to maintain its own existence, in great emergencies.
– Abraham Lincoln
In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in this contest than is realized by every one.
– Abraham Lincoln
Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.
– Abraham Lincoln
Yield larger things to which you can show nor 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
The better part of one’s life consists in his friendships.
– Abraham Lincoln
We are not enemies, but friends. 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 hearthstone 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
Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence.
– Abraham Lincoln
You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it.
– Abraham Lincoln
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be ‘the Union as it was.’
– Abraham Lincoln
I wish all men to be free.
– Abraham Lincoln
Happy day, when, all appetites controlled, all poisons subdued, all matter subjected, mind, all conquering mind, shall live and move the monarch of the world. Glorious consummation! Hail fall of Fury! Reign of Reason, all hail!
– Abraham Lincoln
The United States don’t need the services of boys who disobey their parents.
– Abraham Lincoln
Quotes by Abraham Lincoln
Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in His own good time, will give us the rightful result.
– Abraham Lincoln
The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves.
– Abraham Lincoln
One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. I have always thought all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly, those who desire it others. Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
– Abraham Lincoln
While we must, by all available means, prevent the overthrow of the government, we should avoid planting and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of society.
– Abraham Lincoln
You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.
– Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln Quotes
“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves” ― Abraham Lincoln
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. – Abraham Lincoln
“Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.” ― Abraham Lincoln
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. – Abraham Lincoln
That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well. Abraham Lincoln
A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones.
– Abraham Lincoln
The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.
– Abraham Lincoln
May our children and our children’s children to a thousand generations, continue to enjoy the benefits conferred upon us by a united country, and have cause yet to rejoice under those glorious institutions bequeathed us by Washington and his compeers.
– Abraham Lincoln
If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature.
– Abraham Lincoln
Every blade of grass is a study; and to produce two, where was but one, is both a profit and pleasure.
– Abraham Lincoln
The true rule, in determining to embrace or reject anything, is not whether it have any evil in it, but whether it have more of evil than of good.
– Abraham Lincoln
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