200+ Best Abraham Lincoln Quotes To Inspire You

Abraham Lincoln was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865.

Abraham Lincoln Quotes

1. “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln
2. “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” – Abraham Lincoln
3. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.” – Abraham Lincoln
4. “How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn’t make it a leg.” – Abraham Lincoln
5. “I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.” – Abraham Lincoln
6. “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” – Abraham Lincoln
7. “No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.” – Abraham Lincoln
8. “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
9. “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” – Abraham Lincoln
10. “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” – Abraham Lincoln
11. “Whatever you are, be a good one.” – Abraham Lincoln
12. “I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.” – Abraham Lincoln
13. “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” – Abraham Lincoln
14. “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.” – Abraham Lincoln
15. “No man is poor who has a Godly mother.” – Abraham Lincoln
16. “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln
17. “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” – Abraham Lincoln
18. “Be sure you put your feet in the right place and then stand firm.” – Abraham Lincoln
19. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” – Abraham Lincoln
20. “Every man’s happiness is his own responsibility.” – Abraham Lincoln
21. “The best thing about the future is that is coming one day at a time.” – Abraham Lincoln
22. “Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.” – Abraham Lincoln
23. “If I were two faces, would I be wearing this one?” – Abraham Lincoln
24. “Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.” – Abraham Lincoln
25. “The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.” – Abraham Lincoln
26. “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?” – Abraham Lincoln
27. “If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.” – Abraham Lincoln
28. “Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.” – Abraham Lincoln
29. “I claim not to have controlled events but confess plainly that events have controlled me.” – Abraham Lincoln
30. “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.” – Abraham Lincoln
31. “Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new at all.” – Abraham Lincoln
32. “Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.” – Abraham Lincoln
33. “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.” – Abraham Lincoln
34. “There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.” – Abraham Lincoln
35. “I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization.” – Abraham Lincoln
36. “I would rather be a little nobody, then to be an evil somebody.” – Abraham Lincoln
37. “Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed.” – Abraham Lincoln
38. “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.” – Abraham Lincoln
39. “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” – Abraham Lincoln
40. “Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” – Abraham Lincoln
41. “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 are not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.” – Abraham Lincoln
42. “Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.” – Abraham Lincoln
43. “All I ask for the negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy.” – Abraham Lincoln
44. “When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two-thirds of the time thinking about what they want to hear and one-third thinking about what I want to say.” – Abraham Lincoln
45. “Labor is prior to and independent of, the 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
46. “I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.” – Abraham Lincoln
47. “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
48. “I never encourage deceit, and falsehood, especially if you have got a bad memory, is the worst enemy a fellow can have. The fact is the truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstances are.” – Abraham Lincoln
49. “The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity.” – Abraham Lincoln
50. “You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.” – Abraham Lincoln
51. “We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.” – Abraham Lincoln
52. “Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, a man was made for immortality.” – Abraham Lincoln
53. “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.” – Abraham Lincoln
54. “I distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of friends who would hold my hands while my enemies stab me.” – Abraham Lincoln
55. “I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition but to assist in ameliorating mankind.” – Abraham Lincoln
56. “Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it.” – Abraham Lincoln
57. “I have stepped out upon this platform that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement, I have the best of the bargain.” – Abraham Lincoln
58. “What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?” – Abraham Lincoln
59. “If we have no friends, we have no pleasure; and if we have them, we are sure to lose them, and be doubly pained by the loss.” – Abraham Lincoln
60. “I can make a General in five minutes but a good horse is hard to replace.” – Abraham Lincoln
61. “Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser – in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker, the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.” – Abraham Lincoln
62. “I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.” – Abraham Lincoln
63. “I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.” – Abraham Lincoln
64. “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.” – Abraham Lincoln
65. “Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.” – Abraham Lincoln
66. “I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how a man could look up into the sky and say there is no God.” – Abraham Lincoln
67. “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” – Abraham Lincoln
68. “The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read.” – Abraham Lincoln
69. “If you think you can slander a woman into loving you, or a man into voting for you, try it till you are satisfied.” – Abraham Lincoln
70. “I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has.” – Abraham Lincoln
71. “You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.” – Abraham Lincoln
72. “A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.” – Abraham Lincoln
73. “I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all.” – Abraham Lincoln
74. “It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.” – Abraham Lincoln
75. “A farce or comedy is best played; a tragedy is best read at home.” – Abraham Lincoln
76. “You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry.” – Abraham Lincoln
77. “Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.” – Abraham Lincoln
78. “I have talked with great men, and I do not see how they differ from others.” – Abraham Lincoln
79. “There are no bad pictures; that’s just how your face looks sometimes.” – Abraham Lincoln
80. “I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded, in this connection, of a story of an old Dutch farmer who remarked to a companion once that ‘it was not best to swap horses while crossing streams’.” – Abraham Lincoln
81. “I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.” – Abraham Lincoln
82. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” – Abraham Lincoln
83. “I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.” – Abraham Lincoln
84. “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” – Abraham Lincoln
85. “the concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” – Abraham Lincoln
86. “I have a congenital aversion to failure.” – Abraham Lincoln
87. “I’m a slow walker, but I never walk back.” – Abraham Lincoln
88. “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.” – Abraham Lincoln
89. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.” – Abraham Lincoln
90. “All I have learned, I learned from books.” – Abraham Lincoln
91. “It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.” – Abraham Lincoln
92. “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” – Abraham Lincoln
93. “If I am killed, I can die but once; but to live in constant dread of it, is to die over and over again.” – Abraham Lincoln
94. “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
95. “Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.” – Abraham Lincoln
96. “I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life.” – Abraham Lincoln
97. “I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.” – Abraham Lincoln
98. “And in the end, it is not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln
99. “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln
100. “In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all and it often comes with bitter agony. Perfect relief is not possible except with time. You cannot now believe that you will ever feel better. But this is not true. You are sure to be happy again. Knowing this, truly believing it will make you less miserable now. I have had enough experience to make this statement.” – Abraham Lincoln
101. “We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety clouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.” – Abraham Lincoln
102. “The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.” – Abraham Lincoln
103. “Perhaps a man’s character was like a tree and his reputation like a shadow; the shadow is what we think of it, the tree is like the real thing.” – Abraham Lincoln
104. “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” – Abraham Lincoln
105. “No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.” – Abraham Lincoln
106. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other thing.” – Abraham Lincoln
107. “A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.” – Abraham Lincoln
108. “Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is wrong.” – Abraham Lincoln
109. “When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim, that ‘a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.’” – Abraham Lincoln
110. “Anybody will do for you, but not for me.” – Abraham Lincoln
111. “Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained for it is the only safeguard of our liberties. And not to Democrats alone do I make this appeal, but to all who love these great and true principles.” – Abraham Lincoln
112. “I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.” – Abraham Lincoln
113. “Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” – Abraham Lincoln
114. “What I want is to get done what the people desire to have done, and the question for me is how to find that out exactly.” – Abraham Lincoln
115. “The Democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another mans right of property. Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.” – Abraham Lincoln
116. “Our adversaries the Confederate States of America have adopted some declarations of independence in which, unlike the good old one penned by Jefferson, they omit the words “all men are created equal.” Why? They have adopted a temporary national constitution, in the preamble of which, unlike our good old one, signed by Washington, they omit “We, the People,” and substitute “We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States.” Why? Why this deliberate pressing out of view, the rights of men, and the authority of the people?” – Abraham Lincoln
117. “Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision.” – Abraham Lincoln
118. “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.” – Abraham Lincoln
119. “No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.” – Abraham Lincoln
120. “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.” – Abraham Lincoln
121. “Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” – Abraham Lincoln
122. “The ballot is stronger than the bullet.” – Abraham Lincoln
123. “The money power preys on the nation in times of peace, and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes.” – Abraham Lincoln
124. “Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power.” – Abraham Lincoln
125. “Democracy is “government of, by and for the people”.” – Abraham Lincoln
126. “When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that “all men are created equal” a self evident truth; but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim “a self evident lie” The fourth of July has not quite dwindled away; it is still a great day-for burning fire-crackers!!!” – Abraham Lincoln
127. “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will because we destroyed ourselves.” – Abraham Lincoln
128. “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.” – Abraham Lincoln
129. “This is a world of compensations, and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.” – Abraham Lincoln
130. “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.” – Abraham Lincoln
131. “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” – Abraham Lincoln
132. “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
133. “No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle–the sheet anchor of American republicanism.” – Abraham Lincoln
134. “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. 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.” – Abraham Lincoln
135. “The will of God prevails. In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party – and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.” – Abraham Lincoln
136. “Glory to God in the highest, Ohio has saved the Nation.” – Abraham Lincoln
137. “Fondly do we hope, ferverently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.” – Abraham Lincoln
138. “I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be ‘the Union as it was’.” – Abraham Lincoln
139. “I can not but hate the prospect of slavery’s expansion. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world-enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites-causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity.” – Abraham Lincoln
140. “To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.” – Abraham Lincoln
141. “You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union.” – Abraham Lincoln
142. “War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.” – Abraham Lincoln
143. “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” – Abraham Lincoln
144. “The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party – and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.” – Abraham Lincoln
145. “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.” – Abraham Lincoln
146. “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.” – Abraham Lincoln
147. “Negro equality, Fudge!! How long in the Government of a God great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue to be knaves to vend and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagoguism as this?” – Abraham Lincoln
148. “All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.” – Abraham Lincoln
149. “With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.” – Abraham Lincoln
150. “The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.” – Abraham Lincoln
151. “Every man has a right to be equal with every other man.” – Abraham Lincoln
152. “I am in favor of a national bank…in favor of the internal improvements system and a high protective tariff.” – Abraham Lincoln
153. “Let us remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling.” – Abraham Lincoln
154. “I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any Abolitionist.” – Abraham Lincoln
155. “Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would, directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears.” – Abraham Lincoln
156. “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 have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.” – Abraham Lincoln
157. “During the Civil War, on hearing complaints that Gen. Ulysses S. Grant drank alcohol to excess Find out what Grant drinks and send a barrel of it to each of my other generals!” – Abraham Lincoln
158. “You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.” – Abraham Lincoln
159. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” – Abraham Lincoln
160. “I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling.” – Abraham Lincoln
161. “Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time.” – Abraham Lincoln
162. “It is not merely for to-day, but for all time to come that we should perpetuate for our children’s children this great and free government, which we have enjoyed all our lives.” – Abraham Lincoln
163. “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 to detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” – Abraham Lincoln
164. “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” – Abraham Lincoln
165. “We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed.” – Abraham Lincoln
166. “No State, upon it own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally nothing. I therefore consider that the Union is unbroken. There needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless forced upon the national authority.” – Abraham Lincoln
167. “There is more involved in this contest than is realized by every one. There is involved in this struggle the question whether your children and my children shall enjoy the privileges we have enjoyed.” – Abraham Lincoln
168. “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.” – Abraham Lincoln
169. “I freely acknowledge myself the servant of the people, according to the bond of service – the United States Constitution; and that, as such, I am responsible to them.” – Abraham Lincoln
170. “This is essentially a people’s contest… whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men – to lift artificial weights from all shoulders – to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all – to afford all, an unfettered start and a fair chance, in the race of life.” – Abraham Lincoln
171. “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.” – Abraham Lincoln
172. “I am not in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office.” – Abraham Lincoln
173. “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” – Abraham Lincoln
174. “The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776.” – Abraham Lincoln
175. “One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.” – Abraham Lincoln
176. “If all do not join now to save the good old ship of the Union this voyage nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage.” – Abraham Lincoln
177. “And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.” – Abraham Lincoln
178. “I believe this Government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.” – Abraham Lincoln
179. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” – Abraham Lincoln
180. “The time has come when I am for everybody fighting the rebels. Let Indians fight them; let the Negroes fight them; and if you have got any strong-legged jackasses in Iwoa that can kick rebels to death, they have my hearty consent.” – Abraham Lincoln
181. “We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war long before this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom and our own error therein.” – Abraham Lincoln
182. “Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue.” – Abraham Lincoln
183. “That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred ans sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thence forward, and forever free.” – Abraham Lincoln
184. “I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States.” – Abraham Lincoln
185. “Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.” – Abraham Lincoln
186. “With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.” – Abraham Lincoln
187. “That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.” – Abraham Lincoln
188. “I’m a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.” – Abraham Lincoln
189. “The one victory we can ever call complete will be that one which proclaims that there is not one slave or one drunkard on the face of God’s green earth.” – Abraham Lincoln
190. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.” – Abraham Lincoln
191. “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
192. “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.” – Abraham Lincoln
193. “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.” – Abraham Lincoln
194. “I know not how to aid you, save in the assurance of one of mature age, and much severe experience, that you can not fail, if you resolutely determine, that you will not.” – Abraham Lincoln
195. “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 can be engaged in.” – Abraham Lincoln
196. “Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.” – Abraham Lincoln
197. “I will prepare and some day my chance will come.” – Abraham Lincoln
198. “Every head should be cultivated.” – Abraham Lincoln
199. “A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.” – Abraham Lincoln
200. “My best friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.” – Abraham Lincoln
201. “Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.” – Abraham Lincoln
202. “I am slow to learn and slow to forget that which I have learned.” – Abraham Lincoln
203. “My mind is like a piece of steel, very hard to scratch anything on it and almost impossible after you get it there to rub it out.” – Abraham Lincoln
204. “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” – Abraham Lincoln
205. “My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don’t deny it. I’d rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh — anything but work.” – Abraham Lincoln
206. “Love is the chain to lock a child to its parent.” – Abraham Lincoln
207. “Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature – opposite to it, in his love of justice.” – Abraham Lincoln
208. “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.” – Abraham Lincoln
209. “Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.” – Abraham Lincoln
210. “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” – Abraham Lincoln
211. “All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” – Abraham Lincoln
212. “I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war. I will close by saying, God bless the women of America!” – Abraham Lincoln
213. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” – Abraham Lincoln
214. “Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution and will regret it all your life.” – Abraham Lincoln
215. “I desire to so conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, 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.” – Abraham Lincoln
216. “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln
217. “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.” – Abraham Lincoln
218. “Must a government be too strong for the liberties of its people or too weak to maintain its own existence?” – Abraham Lincoln
219. “The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts.” – Abraham Lincoln
220. “What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.” – Abraham Lincoln
221. “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
222. “The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” – Abraham Lincoln
223. “The United States government must not undertake to run the Churches. When an individual, in the Church or out of it, becomes dangerous to the public interest he must be checked.” – Abraham Lincoln
224. “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” – Abraham Lincoln
225. “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 their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.” – Abraham Lincoln
226. “The legitimate object of government is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they cannot, by individual effort, for at all, or do so well, for themselves.” – Abraham Lincoln