Abraham Lincoln
God bless the Methodist Church - bless all the churches - and blessed be God, Who, in this our great trial, giveth us the churches.Collection: Religious
When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government-that is despotism.Collection: Men
I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were felt by the whole human race, there would not be one cheerful face left on earth.Collection: Depression
If ever this free people, if this Government itself is ever utterly demoralized, it will come from this incessant human wriggle and struggle for office, which is but a way to live without work.Collection: Struggle
You can always lie to others and hide your actions from them... but you can not fool yourselfCollection: Encouragement
Allow me to assure you, that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation.Collection: Jealousy
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.Collection: War
If all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government.Collection: Men
I can't spare this man, he fights!Collection: War
Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature can not be changedCollection: Nature
I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens . . . to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.Collection: Thanksgiving
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.Collection: Congress And The President
A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones.Collection: Reading
I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.Collection: Meaningful
I think that if anything can be proved by natural theology, it is that slavery is morally wrong. God gave man a mouth to receive bread, hands to feed it, and his hand has a right to carry bread to his mouth without controversy.Collection: Religious
I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back.Collection: Inspirational
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?Collection: Friendship
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.Collection: War
Prosperity is the fruit of labor. It begins with saving money.Collection: Saving
I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.Collection: Perseverance
If 600,000 people have to die in order for the nation to live, then 600,000 people will die.Collection: Order
We hope all danger may be overcome; but to conclude that no danger may ever arise would itself be extremely dangerous.Collection: Overcoming
I trust that as He shall further open the way, I will be ready to walk therein, relying on His help and trusting in His goodness and wisdom.Collection: Way
I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization.Collection: War
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.Collection: Thinking
Your good mother tells me you are feeling very badly in your new situation. Allow me to assure you it is a perfect certainty that you will, very soon, feel better - quite happy - if you only stick to the resolution you have taken to procure a military education.... 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.Collection: Mother
I believe the Bible is the best gift God ever gave to man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through that book." On a personal spiritual note, Lincoln confessed, "I have been driven many times to my knees with the overwhelming conviction, that I had nowhere else to go.Collection: Spiritual
Military necessity does not admit of cruelty - that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, . . . nor of torture to extort confessions.Collection: Revenge
I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.Collection: War
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.Collection: War
If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that ‘all men are created equal,' and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.Collection: Men
Thoughtful men must feel that the fate of civilization upon this continent is involved in the issue of our contest. Among the most satisfying proofs of this conviction is the hearty devotion everywhere exhibited by our schools and colleges to the national cause.Collection: Heart
Peace will come soon to stay, and so come as to be worth keeping in all future time. It will then have proved that among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure their cases and pay the costs.Collection: Military
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.Collection: Men
Talk to the jury as though your client's fate depends on every word you utter.Collection: Fate
No client ever had money enough to bribe my conscience or to stop its utterance against wrong, and oppression.Collection: Utterance
Our strife pertains to ourselves-to the passing generations of men-and it can without convulsion be hushed forever with the passing of one generation.Collection: Men
We shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.Collection: Patience
Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.Collection: War
May our children and our children's children to a thousand generations, continue to enjoy the benefits conferred upon us by a united country, and have cause yet to rejoice under those glorious institutions bequeathed us by Washington and his compeers.Collection: Country
As the chief speaker at the dedication of the national cemetery at the Gettysburg Battlefield, statesman Edward Everett wrote to Lincoln: I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.Collection: Dedication
Singular indeed the people should be writhing under oppression and injury, and yet not one among them to be found, to raise the voice of complaint.Collection: Voice
Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other right.Collection: Rights
I have a congenital aversion to failure.Collection: Aversion
I believe I shall never be old enough to speak without embarrassment when I have nothing to talk about.Collection: Believe
A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them.Collection: Country
Nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out.Collection: President
I have really got it into my head to try to be United States Senator, and, if I could have your support, my chances would be reasonably good. But I know, and acknowledge, that you have as just claims to the place as I have; and therefore I cannot ask you to yield to me, if you are thinking of becoming a candidate, yourself. If, however, you are not, then I should like to be remembered affectionately by you; and also to have you make a mark for me with the Anti-Nebraska members down your way.Collection: Thinking
You say men ought to be hung for the way they are executing the law; I say the way it is being executed is quite as good as any of its antecedents. It is being executed in the precise way which was intended from the first, else why does no Nebraska man express astonishment or condemnation? Poor Reeder is the only public man who has been silly enough to believe that anything like fairness was ever intended, and he has been bravely undeceived.Collection: Believe