Abraham Lincoln Quotes (426 Quotes)


    Whenever there is a conflict between human rights and property rights, human rights must prevail

    Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.

    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.'


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


    In all that people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.

    The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.

    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.

    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.

    The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of the consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saves immense sums of interest. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government's greatest creative opportunity.

    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'.

    Reply to a clergyman who said to Lincoln that he hoped 'the Lord was on our side.' I know that the LORD is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that this nation should be on the LORD'S side.


    If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution

    Letter to Horace Greeley. August 22, 1862 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.

    I am struggling to maintain the government, not to overthrow it. I am struggling especially to prevent others from overthrowing it.

    You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.

    Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

    People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.

    Republicans are the party of my people, created for my people,

    Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.

    I will study and prepare and perhaps my chance will come.

    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 existence in great emergencies

    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.

    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 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.

    Lonely men seek companionship. Lonely women sit at home and wait. They never meet.

    If you wish to win a man over to your ideas, first make him your friend.

    Gentlemen, why don't you laugh With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh, I should die. You need this medicine as much a I do.

    The love of property and consciousness of right and wrong have conflicting places in our organization, which often makes a man's course seem crooked, his conduct a riddle

    These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.

    This human struggle and scramble for office, for a way to live without work, will finally test the strength of our institutions

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

    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, wi.


    The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity.

    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 it's reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.

    Friends, I agree with you in Providence but I believe in the Providence of the most men, the largest purse, and the longest cannon.

    To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.

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

    There is nothing true anywhere, The true is nowhere to be seen; If you say you see the true, This seeing is not the true one.

    How many legs does a dog have, if you call his tail a leg The answer is four, because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

    I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

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

    You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time.

    We live in the midst of alarms anxiety beclouds the future we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.

    Every person is responsible for his own looks after 40.


    These office-seekers are a curse to the country no sooner was my election certain, than I became the prey of hundreds of hungry persistent applicants for office, whose highest ambition is to feed at the Government's crib.

    It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year, ... to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our soldiers in their camps, and our sailors on the rivers and seas, with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free populati.


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