Abraham Lincoln Quotes
I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.
Abraham Lincoln (The Life and Public Service of Abraham Lincoln, 1865)
Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature
Abraham Lincoln (Speech at Peoria, Illnois, 1854)
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.
Abraham Lincoln (Quoted in Hermdon's Lincoln, 1890)
If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.
Abraham Lincoln
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
Abraham Lincoln
Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.
Abraham Lincoln (Letter to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, 1864)
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.
Abraham Lincoln (First Inaugural Adress, 1861)
The mystic chords of memory... will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Abraham Lincoln (First Inaugural Adress, 1861)
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln's Imagination, 1879)
I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
Abraham Lincoln (Quoted in The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1896)
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
Abraham Lincoln
When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
Abraham Lincoln (Recollections of the Civil War, 1898)
Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
Abraham Lincoln
I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.
Abraham Lincoln
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.
Abraham Lincoln (Notes for a Law Lecture, 1850)
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
Abraham Lincoln
I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.
Abraham Lincoln (Speech in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, 1858)
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.
Abraham Lincoln (Speech at Edwardsville, 1858)
In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all, and to the young it comes with bittered agony because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to expect it.
Abraham Lincoln (Letter to Fanny McCullough, 1862)
When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
Abraham Lincoln
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
Abraham Lincoln (The Gettysburg Adress, 1863)
I have always wanted to deal with everyone I meet candidly and honestly. If I have made any assertion not warranted by facts, and it is pointed out to me, I will withdraw it cheerfully.
Abraham Lincoln
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.
I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have.
I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
Abraham Lincoln
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
Abraham Lincoln (Adress at a Sanity Fair, 1864)
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.
Abraham Lincoln
(First State of the Union adress, 1861)
Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.
Abraham Lincoln
Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
Abraham Lincoln (Letter to William H. Herndon, 1848)
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
Abraham Lincoln (Speech in the United States House of Representatives, 1848)
Understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them.
Abraham Lincoln (Letter to Theodore Canisius, 1859)
With malice toward none, with charity for all; let us strive on to finish the work we are in, …to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Abraham Lincoln (Second Inaugural Adress, 1865)
