Abraham Lincoln was an American statesman, politician, and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War, its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis.
- Born: February 12, 1809, Hodgenville, Kentucky, United States
- Height: 1.93 m Assassinated: April 15, 1865, Petersen House, Washington, D.C., United States
- Party: National Union Party Children: Robert Todd Lincoln, William Wallace Lincoln, Tad Lincoln, Edward Baker Lincoln
Here are my favorite 100 Famous Abraham Lincoln Quotes:
1. That our government should have been maintained in its original form from its establishment until now is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed and crumbled away. Through that period, it was felt by all to be an undecided experiment; now, it is understood to be a successful one.
2. It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life.
3. I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life.
4. To the best of my judgment, I have labored for, and not against, the Union. As I have not felt, so I have not expressed any harsh sentiment towards our Southern brethren. I have constantly declared, as I really believed, the only difference between them and us is the difference of circumstances.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. It would astonish if not amuse the older citizens to learn that I (a strange, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working at ten dollars per month) have been put down as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction.
8. I believe it is universally understood and acknowledged that all men will ever act correctly, unless they have a motive to do otherwise.
9. It is with your aid, as the people, that I think we shall be able to preserve - not the country, for the country will preserve itself, but the institutions of the country - those institutions which have made us free, intelligent and happy - the most free, the most intelligent, and the happiest people on the globe.
10. Among the friends of Union, there is great diversity of sentiment and of policy in regard to slavery and the African race among us.
11. 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. 12.Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.
13. 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.
14. It has so happened in all ages of the world that some have labored, and others have, without labor, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar. 18.The people know their rights, and they are never slow to assert and maintain them when they are invaded.
19. When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
20. Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
21. 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.
22. There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury. 23.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.
23. 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.
24. Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed.
25. 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.
26. If you think you can slander a woman into loving you, or a man into voting for you, try it till you are satisfied.
27. Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.
28. Biographies, as generally written, are not only misleading but false... In most instances, they commemorate a lie and cheat posterity out of the truth.
29. My father... removed from Kentucky to... Indiana, in my eighth year... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up... Of course when I came of age, I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher... but that was all.
30. I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
31. These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people; and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel.
32. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap - let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.
33. If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts the country will be settled just as surely as all other difficulties of like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted. 34.I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
34. I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
35. With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
36. 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.
37. 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.
38.When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
39. It is rather for us here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.
40. These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.
41. The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.
42. The man who could go to Africa and rob her of her children, and then sell them into interminable bondage, with no other motive than that which is furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the most depraved murderer that he can never receive pardon at my hand.
43. Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory. 44.We can succeed only by concert. It is not, 'Can any of us imagine better,' but, 'Can we all do better?'
45. 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.
46. 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.
47. 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.
48. 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.
49. A man watches his pear tree day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe pear at length falls into his lap.
50. America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
51.Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
52. 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.
53. 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.
54. Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
55. 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.
56. If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee. 57.Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.
58. 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.
59. The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
60. Gold is good in its place; but loving, brave, patriotic men are better than gold.
61. 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 exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
62. 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.
63. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States - old as well as new - North as well as South. 64.I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.
65. My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.
66. 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.
67. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.
68. 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.
69. 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.
70. 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.
71. I am like a man so busy in letting rooms in one end of his house, that he can't stop to put out the fire that is burning the other.
72. Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech.
73. True patriotism is better than the wrong kind of piety.
74. 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.
75. 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.
76. I can express all my views on the slavery question by quotations from Henry Clay.
77. The assertion that 'all men are created equal' was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.
78. 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.
79. 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.
80. To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
81. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
82. That I am not a member of any Christian church is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures, and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular.
83. It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
84. 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.
85. Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right of the people to exclude slavery, voted down? Plainly enough now, the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision.
86. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
87. I understand a ship to be made for the carrying and preservation of the cargo, and so long as the ship can be saved, with the cargo, it should never be abandoned. This Union likewise should never be abandoned unless it fails and the possibility of its preservation shall cease to exist, without throwing passengers and cargo overboard.
88. 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. 89.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.
89. 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.
90. 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.
91. I pass my life in preventing the storm from blowing down the tent, and I drive in the pegs as fast as they are pulled up.
92. If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and lone and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors.
93. I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon Washington. Unless the great God, who assisted him, shall be with me and aid me, I must fail; but if the same omniscient mind and almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me, I shall not fail - I shall succeed.
94. I do not think I could myself be brought to support a man for office whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion.
95. I go for all sharing the privileges of the government, who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).
96. I perhaps ought to say that individually I never was much interested in the Texas question. I never could see much good to come of annexation, inasmuch as they were already a free republican people on our own model.
97. When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying.
98. If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. 99.In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong.
99. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong.
100. I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.
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