Abraham Lincoln Quotes on Enemy (6 Quotes)

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

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.

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.

President Lincoln was once criticized for his attitude toward his enemies. 'Why do you try to make friends of them' asked an associate. 'You should try to destroy them.' 'Am I not destroying my enemies,' Lincoln gently replied, 'when I make them my friends'

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work who 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 fail if 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.