Abraham Lincoln
Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever do so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and contented; and there is nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort.Collection: Power
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.Collection: Best
My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.Collection: Patriotism
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.Collection: Hope
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.Collection: Men
I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.Collection: Hope
All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.Collection: Hope
In so far as the government lands can be disposed of, I am in favor of cutting up the wild lands into parcels so that every poor man may have a home.Collection: Government
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.Collection: Good
It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.Collection: Chance
I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.Collection: Gardening
No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.Collection: Pet
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.Collection: Success
Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.Collection: Nature
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.Collection: Education
I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.Collection: Politics
I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.Collection: Mothers
I have talked with great men, and I do not see how they differ from others.Collection: Great
I learned a great many years ago that in a fight between husband and wife, a third party should never get between the woman's skillet and the man's ax-helve.Collection: Great
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?Collection: Funny
Our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the Negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, sneered at, construed, hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.Collection: Independence
Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.Collection: Marriage
If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.Collection: Business
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.Collection: History
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.Collection: Future
Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.Collection: Faith
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.Collection: Experience
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 purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.Collection: War
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.Collection: Time
Gold is good in its place; but loving, brave, patriotic men are better than gold.Collection: Good
There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, 'Truth is the daughter of Time.'Collection: Truth
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, man was made for immortality.Collection: God
The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.Collection: Legal
The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.Collection: Art
True patriotism is better than the wrong kind of piety.Collection: Patriotism
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.Collection: Equality
It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles - the oppression of tyranny - to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them.Collection: Nature
In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and to the young, it comes with bitterest agony because it takes them unawares. I have had experience enough to know what I say.Collection: Sad
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, cannot long retain it.Collection: Freedom
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.Collection: Good
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.Collection: Happiness
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.Collection: Time
Repeal the Missouri Compromise - repeal all compromises - repeal the Declaration of Independence - repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It will be the abundance of man's heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.Collection: Independence
For my part, I desire to see the time when education - and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and industry - shall become much more general than at present, and should be gratified to have it in my power to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might have a tendency to accelerate the happy period.Collection: Power
The point - the power to hurt - of all figures lies in the truthfulness of their application.Collection: Power
We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.Collection: God
Avoid popularity if you would have peace.Collection: Peace
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.Collection: Work
We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.Collection: Government
In my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say in advance, there will be no blood shed unless it be forced upon the government. The government will not use force unless force is used against it.Collection: Government