Abraham Lincoln
I have always been an old-line Henry Clay Whig.
A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.
Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, so will this, and this great nation shall continue to prosper as before.
I have said a hundred times, and I have no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States, and to interfere with the question of slavery at all. I have said that always.
Being elected to Congress, though I am very grateful to our friends for having done it, has not pleased me as much as I expected.
I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life.
I can express all my views on the slavery question by quotations from Henry Clay.
Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new territories, is not a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territories. We want them for the homes of free white people.
You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work, I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time.
We think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this.
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.
Upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.
Nations do not die from invasion; they die from internal rottenness.Collection: Invasion
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.Collection: Wisdom
The most reliable way to predict the future is to create it.Collection: Positive
Great men are ordinary men with extra ordinary determination.Collection: Determination
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.Collection: Country
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.Collection: Inspirational
You must remember that some things legally right are not morally right.Collection: Remember
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.Collection: Funny
We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.Collection: Inspirational
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.Collection: Inspirational
When you make it to the top, turn and reach down for the person behind you.Collection: Behind You
If you have never failed you have never lived.Collection: Short Inspirational Life
It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest.Collection: Sin
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.Collection: Libertarian Party
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.Collection: Dog
Behind the cloud the sun is still shining.Collection: Encouraging
We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving Grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!Collection: Freedom
Those who are ready to sacrifice freedom for security ultimately will lose both.Collection: Sacrifice
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.Collection: Freedom
My friends I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail.Collection: Knowing
The Union, and the Constitution, are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was not made to conceal or destroy the apple, but to adorn and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple-not the apple for the picture.Collection: Apples
Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power.Collection: Humanity
And upon this act [Emancipation Proclamation]...I invoke...the gracious favor of Almighty God.Collection: Favors
We were proclaiming ourselves political hypocrites before the world, by thus fostering Human Slavery and proclaiming ourselves, at the same time, the sole friends of Human Freedom.Collection: Hypocrite
you can't escape tomorrow's responsibilities by evading it todayCollection: Responsibility
Lonely men seek companionship. Lonely women sit at home and wait. They never meet.Collection: Lonely
The man who stands by and says nothing, when the peril of his government is discussed, can not be misunderstood. If not hindered, he is sure to help the enemy.Collection: Men
The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government's greatest creative opportunity.Collection: Opportunity
As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;-let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children's liberty.Collection: Children
I am for . . . each individual doing just as he chooses in all matters which concern nobody else.Collection: Liberty
The world is agreed that labor is the source from which human wants are mainly supplied. There is no dispute upon this point.Collection: Work
Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south - let all Americans - let all lovers of liberty everywhere - join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations.Collection: Blessed
Through their deeds, the dead of battle have spoken more eloquently for themselves than any of the living ever could. But we can only honor them by rededicating ourselves to the cause for which they gave a last full measure of devotion.Collection: Honor
War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.Collection: War
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.Collection: Father
The land-grant university system is being built on behalf of the people, who have invested in these public universities their hopes, their support, and their confidence.Collection: Land