Quotes by Abraham Lincoln

"The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person."

"If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance."

"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."

"I will prepare and some day my chance will come."

"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"

"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."

"No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar."

"Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves."

"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"

"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."

"Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."

"Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth."

"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."

"No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent."

"The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next."

"That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well."

"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."

"Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."

"All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."

"I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause."

"My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth."

"I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where will you stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?"

"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."

"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."

"Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory."

"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."

"Avoid popularity if you would have peace."

"The ballot is stronger than the bullet."

"When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion."

"If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem."

"I have great respect for the semicolon; it is a mighty handy little fellow."

"Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm."

"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."

"There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, 'Truth is the daughter of Time.'"

"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."

"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."

"The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly."