“I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all. ”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“You can complain because a rose has thorns, or you can rejoice
Because the thorns have a rose.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“It's not me who can't keep a secret. It's the people I tell that can't.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
―
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
“I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it, 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“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. . . . If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us'; but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.”
―
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
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“One company can serve some of your needs all of the time, or all of your needs some of the time, but never both.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
