Abraham Lincoln Quotes (426 Quotes)

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

Among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim that 'a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one.

Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.

We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot.

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it the tree is the real thing I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have l.

The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.

Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.

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

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.

A farce or comedy is best played a tragedy is best read at home.

Important principles may and must be flexible.

As the chief speaker at the dedication of the national cemetery at the Gettysburg Battlefield, statesman Edward Everett wrote to Lincoln I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.

If all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government.

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

The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all in their separate and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought n.

Broken campaign promises are as old as the Presidency itself. Here the 'Great Emancipator' makes an inaugural pledge that history would sooner forget. '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.'

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

Die when I may, I want it said of me that I plucked a weed and planted a flower where ever I thought a flower would grow.

Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence.

It's a party of hope for America. Lincoln gave Americans hope through equal opportunities for all.

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

Smiley writes that upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Toms Cabin, ... So this is the little lady who made this big war.

Such will be a great lesson of peace teaching men that what they cannot take by an election, neither can they take by a war teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war

I'm sorry I wrote such a long letter. I did not have the time to write a short one.

The people know their rights, and they are never slow to assert and maintain them, when they are invaded.

Do not worry eat three square meals a day say your prayers be courteous to your creditors keep your digestion good exercise go slow and easy. Maybe there are other things your special case requires to make you happy but, my friend, these I rec

I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice, and have received a great deal of kindness not quite free from ridicule.

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.

Dear Madam, I have been shown in the files of the War Department a Statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. 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. Yours, very sincerely and respectfully, President Abraham Lincoln.

I can make more generals, but horses cost money.

Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world.

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

The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.

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 of any denomination of Christians in particular.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

I will prepare and some day my chance will come.

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.

The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just it shall not deter me.

Senator Stephen Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post offices, land offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands.

Freedom is the last, best hope of earth.

Must a government be too strong for the liberties of its people or too weak to maintain its own existence

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.

Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is the tree is the real thing.

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

A lawyer's time and advice are his stock in trade.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.