Abraham Lincoln Quotes (426 Quotes)

If there is a worse place than hell, then I am in it.

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 of their own liberties and institutions.

A jury too often has at least one member who is more ready to hang the panel than the traitor.

The plainest print cannot be read through a gold eagle

With high hope for the future, no prediction is ventured.

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

I destroy my enemy when I make him my friend.

We must ask where we are and whither we are tending.

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

The story of a jackass Lincoln owned as a young man The case of that jackass was most singular. When everything was pleasant all around he would kick the worst. When his rack was fullest and his stall fixed with new straw and everything real comfortable, that jackass would start in on the almightiest spell of kicking that was ever seen. All the veterinary surgeons in the neighborhood came and tried to find out just what made the critter kick so. They never could agree about it. One thing we all noticed was that he always brayed and kicked at the same time. Sometimes he would bray first and then kick, but other times he would kick first and then bray, so that confused us, and nobody in that whole country was ever able to find out whether that jackass was braying at his own kick or kicking at his own brays.

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.

In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

I laugh because I must not cry. That is all. That is all.

Public opinion in this country is everything.

Offering thanks in the midst of tragedy is an American tradition, ... even during a bloody Civil War.

I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

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

Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good.

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 may be engaged in.

I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.

All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.

Be not deceived. Revolutions do not go backward.

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

But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.

So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.

As President, I have no eyes but constitutional eyes I cannot see you.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

I am for the people of the whole nation doing just as they please in all matter which concern the whole nation for those of each part doing just as they choose in all matters which concern no other part and for each individual doing just as he chooses in all matters which concern nobody else.

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

I can't spare this man he fights.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

Singular indeed the people should be writhing under oppression and injury, and yet not one among them to be found, to raise the voice of complaint

It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelity

I am a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down...

No. The mule has just four legs. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one.

unprecedented decision to incorporate his eminent rivals into his political family, the cabinet, was evidence of an uncanny self-confidence and an indication of what would prove to others a most unexpected greatness.

Remarks at the Monogahela House February 14, 1861 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.

One is a majority if he is right.

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.

We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.

It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.

If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. You may fool all of the people some of the time you can even fool some of the people all the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

We shall nobody save or meanly lose the last best hope

Moral principle is a looser bond than pecuniary interest.

There is an important sense in which government is distinctive from administration. One is perpetual, the other is temporary and changeable. A man may be loyal to his government and yet oppose the particular principles and methods of administration. Attributed to Representative Abraham Lincoln. by W. T. Roche, address at Washington, Kansas, April 9, 1942 'These words were spoken by Lincoln, then a Congressman, in defense of his condemnation of President Polk for provoking the Mexican War.'

A jury too often has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor.

I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization.

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.

It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it, induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as here assumed .... 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. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights.