“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power. … But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. (“A National Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer.” Proclamation March 30, 1863)”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I do the very best I can, I mean to keep going. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me won't matter. If I'm wrong, ten angels swearing I was right won't make a difference.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“They [the signers of the Declaration of Independence] did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right; so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“We shall need all the anti-slavery feeling in the country, and more; you can go home and try to bring the people to your views, and you may say anything you like about me, if that will help... When the hour comes for dealing with slavery, I trust I will be willing to do my duty though it cost my life.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I consider the central idea pervading this struggle is the necessity that is upon us, of proving that popular govenment is not an absurdity. We must settle this question now, whether in a free government the minority have the right to break up the govenment whenever they choose. If we fail it will go far to prove the incapability of the people to govern themselves.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but holding it a sound maxim, that it is better to be only sometimes right, than at all times wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“A farmer had a vicious bull that took after anybody who tried to cross the field. One day a neighbor climbed the fence and was soon running for his life. This man was fast, though, and he got to a tree with the bull close behind. There was no time to climb the tree, so he led the bull in a chase around the tree. He finally was able to grab the bull by the tail. The bull was now at a disadvantage. He couldn’t catch the man and he couldn’t shake him from his tail. The more they ran the madder the bull got. He pawed up the earth and bellowed until you could hear him miles away. Finally, he broke into a dead run, the man still hanging onto his tail. "The neighbor, now dragging along behind, shouted at the bull, 'Darn you, who commenced this fuss?' "That’s our situation here,” summarized Lincoln. “It's our duty to settle this fuss at the earliest possible moment, no matter who commenced it”.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Determine that the thing can and shall be done and then... find the way.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“The worst thing you can do for those you love is the things they could and should do themselves.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Anything can be a bucket if you try hard enough and believe.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Teach the children so it won't be necessary to teach the adults.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“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.”
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Abraham Lincoln
