Abraham Lincoln
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior ofcapital, and deserves muchthe higher consideration.Collection: Independent Women
President Lincoln was once criticized for his attitude toward his enemies. "Why do you try to make friends of them?" asked an associate. "You should try to destroy them." "Am I not destroying my enemies," Lincoln gently replied, "when I make them my friends?"Collection: Friendship
The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.Collection: Bible
I have just read your dispatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses, Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the Battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?Collection: Horse
I am satisfied that when the Almighty wants me to do or not do any particular thing, He finds a way of letting me know itCollection: Way
It has long been recognized that the problems with alcohol relate not to the use of a bad thing, but to the abuse of a good thing.Collection: Long
I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men's rights.Collection: Believe
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.Collection: Party
I do not allow myself to suppose that either the convention or the League, have concluded to decide that I am either the greatest or the best man in America, but rather they have concluded it is not best to swap horses while crossing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swap.Collection: Change
I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will. ... I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me... These are not, however, the days of miracles ... I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right.Collection: Wise
I have come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason, I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me.Collection: Life
I certainly know that if the war fails, the administration fails, and that I will be blamed for it, whether I deserve it or not. And I ought to be blamed, if I could do better. You think I could do better; therefore you blame me already. I think I could not do better; therefore I blame you for blaming me.Collection: War
Others have been made fools of by the girls; but, this can never be with truth said of me. I most emphatically, in this instance,made a fool of myself.Collection: Girl
So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!Collection: War
One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever.Collection: Law
The damnest scoundrel that ever lived, but in the infinite mercy of Providence... also the damnest fool.Collection: Fool
Cortissoz was art critic of the New York Herald Tribune.Collection: Art
I turn, then, and look to the American people and to that God who has never forsaken them.Collection: Religious
God bless the soldiers and seamen, with all their brave commanders.Collection: Religious
With this honor devolves upon you also a corresponding responsibility. As the country herein trusts you, so under God it will sustain you.Collection: Country
The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.Collection: Father
If I have one vice and I can call it nothing else it is not able to say 'no'.Collection: Vices
I have never united myself to any church because I found difficulty in giving my assent without mental reservation to the long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize the articles of belief and the usual confession of faith.Collection: Christian
In the way our Fathers originally left the slavery question, the institution was in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction . . . . All I have asked or desired anywhere, is that it should be placed back again upon the basis that the Fathers of our government originally placed it upon.Collection: Father
As the problems are new, we must disenthrall ourselves from the past.Collection: Past
Submitted to the Sec. of War. On principle I dislike an oath which requires a man to swear he has not done wrong. It rejects the Christian principle of forgiveness on terms of repentance. I think it is enough if the man does no wrong hereafter.Collection: Christian
Glory to God in the highest, Ohio has saved the Nation.Collection: War
The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity.Collection: Blood
Accounts of outrages committed by mobs form the every-day news of the times. They have pervaded the country from New England to Louisiana, they are neither peculiar to the eternal snows of the former nor the burning suns of the latter; they are not the creature of climate, neither are they confined to the slaveholding or the non-slaveholding States. Alike they spring up among the pleasure-hunting masters of Southern slaves, and the order-loving citizens of the land of steady habits. Whatever then their cause may be, it is common to the whole country.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Art
Towering genius disdains a beaten path ... It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts for distinction.Collection: Genius
I think slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.Collection: Thinking
Again, a law may be both constitutional and expedient, and yet may be administered in an unjust and unfair way.Collection: Law
A long visit to a friend is often a great bore. Never make people twice glad.Collection: Inspirational Life
The Lord spared the fitten and the rest he seen fitten to die.Collection: War
I don't s'pose anybody on earth likes gingerbread better'n I do-and gets less'n I do.Collection: War
My faith in the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me.Collection: Lying
In this troublesome world, we are never quite satisfied. When you were here, I thought you hindered me some in attending to business; but now, having nothing but business---no variety---it has grown exceedingly tasteless to me. I hate to sit down and direct documents, and I hate to stay in this old room by myself.Collection: Hate
Nothing will divert me from my purpose.Collection: Purpose
My policy is to have no policy.Collection: Policy
Have I not destroyed my enemy when I have made him into my friend?Collection: Inspiring
I cannot bring myself to believe that any human being lives who would do me any harm.Collection: Believe
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!Collection: War
In the world's history certain inventions and discoveries occurred, of peculiar value, on account of their great efficiency in facilitating all other inventions and discoveries. Of these were the art of writing and of printing - the discovery of America, and the introduction of Patent-laws. The date of the first ... is unknown; but it certainly was as much as fifteen hundred years before the Christian era; the second-printing-came in 1436, or nearly three thousand years after the first. The others followed more rapidly - the discovery of America in 1492, and the first patent laws in 1624.Collection: Christian
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.Collection: Men
There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas...Collection: Ideas
Nor must Uncle Sam's Web-feet be forgotten. At all the watery margins they have been present. Not only on the deep sea, the broadbay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow muddy bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been, and made their tracks.Collection: Uncles
You are green, it is true; but they are green also. You are all green alike.Collection: War