“Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I will not say that we may not sooner or later be compelled to meet force by force; but the time has not yet come, and if we are true to ourselves, may never come. Do not mistake that the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Therefore let the legions of slavery use bullets; but let us wait patiently till November, and fire ballots at them in return; and by that peaceful policy, I believe we shall ultimately win.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both *may* be, and one *must* be, wrong. God cannot be *for* and *against* the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party - and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaption to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true - that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By His mere great power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either *saved* or *destroyed* the Union without human contest. Yet the contest began, And, having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“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.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“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 up to what light I have.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I went to my room one day and locked the door and got down upon my knees before Almighty God and prayed to Him mightily for victory at Gettysburg. I told Him that this war was His, and our cause His cause, that we could not stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. Then and there I made a solemn vow to Almighty God that if He would stand by our boys at Gettysburg, I would stand by Him, and He did stand by you boys, and I will stand by him. And after that, I don't know how it was, and I cannot explain it, soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul. The feeling came that God had taken the whole business into His own hands, and things would go right at Gettysburg, and that was why I had no fears about you.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I shall adopt new Muse as fast as they appear to be true Muse.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damages morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hung”
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Abraham Lincoln
“And in the end it is not the years in your life that count, it's the life in your years.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
