“Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought a flower would grow.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Force is all conquering, but it's victories are short lived.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name, liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names, liberty and tyranny. The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Gentlemen, why do you not laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me day and night, if I did not laugh, I should die. ”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“There has never been but one question in all civilization-how to keep a few men from saying to many men: You work and earn bread and we will eat it.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I am growing old enough not to care much for the MANNER of doing things.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Determine that the thing can and shall be done and then... find the way.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he made so many of them.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I am slow to learn and slow to forget that which I have learned. My mind is like a piece of steel, very hard to scratch any thing on it and almost impossible after you get it there to rub it out.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I am very little inclined on any occasion to say anything unless I hope to produce some good by it.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
