Abraham Lincoln Quotations | Page 3

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

I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life.

If I like a thing, it just sticks after once reading it or hearing it.

It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life.

Nothing new here, except my marrying, which to me is a matter of profound wonder.

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.

By what principle of original right is it that one-fiftieth or one-ninetieth of a great nation, by calling themselves a State, have the right to break up and ruin that nation as a matter of original principle?

Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be, as the egg is to the fowl; we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.

Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States - old as well as new - North as well as South.

I perhaps ought to say that individually I never was much interested in the Texas question. I never could see much good to come of annexation, inasmuch as they were already a free republican people on our own model.

I think that slavery is wrong, morally, socially and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.

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.

Only events and not a man's exertions in his own behalf, can make a President

My father taught me to work, but he did not teach me to love it.

My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh - anything but work.

One 'd' is enough for God, but the Todds need two.

My earlier views at the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them

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

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

There are too many pigs for the teats

Military glory - that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood

Military glory --the attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood.

Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.

Public opinion in this country is everything.

Some day I shall be President.

That we 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.

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.

My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh -- anything but work.

Prohibition... 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.

Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damages morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hung

The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.

A tendancy to melancholy...let it be observed, is a misfortune, not a fault.

I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war.

My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.

My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.

But for this book we could not know right from wrong.

If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.

The loss of enemies does not compensate for the loss of friends.

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.

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.

Certainly there is no contending against the Will of God; but still there is some difficulty in ascertaining, and applying it, to particular cases.

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.

Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in his own good time, will give us the rightful result.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God ... and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

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

I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better, it appears to me.

Democracy is "government of, by and for the people".

No state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy.

If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already.

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...

I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.

I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

We were proclaiming ourselves political hypocrites before the world, by thus fostering Human Slavery and proclaiming ourselves, at the same time, the sole friends of Human Freedom.

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

The working men are the basis of all governments, for the plain reason that they are the most numerous...

Law is nothing else but the best reason of wise men applied for ages to the transactions and business of mankind.

If you wish to be a lawyer, attach no consequence to the place you are in, or the person you are with; but get books, sit down anywhere, and go to reading for yourself. That will make a lawyer of you quicker than any other way.

In law it is good policy to never plead what you need not, lest you oblige yourself to prove what you can not.

When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me not be understood as saying there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise, for the redress of which, no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say, that, although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still while they continue in force, for the sake of example, they should be religiously observed.

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

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.

It is my pleasure that my children are free and happy, and unrestrained by parental tyranny. Love is the chain whereby to bind a child to its parents.

The struggle of today is not altogether for today - it is for a vast future also.

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

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.

It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.

It has been said of the world's history hitherto that might makes right. It is for us and for our time to reverse the maxim, and to say that right makes might.

The fiery trials through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.

I fear explanations explanatory of things explained.

One company can serve some of your needs all of the time, or all of your needs some of the time, but never both.

I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded, in this connection, of a story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that "it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams."

All that harms labor is treason to America.

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.

Let us strive on to finish the work we are in.

As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by interest, and next no one left to borrow from - so must it be with a government.

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.

There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.

I have stepped out upon this platform that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement I have the best of the bargain.

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.

You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm.

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.

I am greatly obliged to you, and to all who have come forward at the call of their country.

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.

My God! My God! What will the country say?

There is really no crisis except an artificial one...If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the trouble will come to an end.

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

A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started ... He will assume control of your cities, states and nations. He is going to move in and take over your churches, schools, universities, and corporations ... The fate of humanity is in his hands.

Violence begins where knowledge ends.

I do the very best I can, I mean to keep going. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me won't matter. If I'm wrong, ten angels swearing I was right won't make a difference.

you can't escape tomorrow's responsibilities by evading it today

Killing the dog does not cure the bite.

It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest.

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

Were it not for my little jokes, I could not bear the burdens of this office.

I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

Those who are ready to sacrifice freedom for security ultimately will lose both.

If there is no military need for the building, leave it alone, neither putting anyone in or out of it, except on finding some one preaching or practicing treason, in which case lay hands on him, just as if he were doing the same thing in any other building.

I belive that people should fight for what they believe and only what they believe.

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

The Union, and the Constitution, are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was not made to conceal or destroy the apple, but to adorn and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple-not the apple for the picture.