“. . . 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.
- President Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg address, November 19, 1863”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I am slow to listen to criminations among friends, and never expose their quarrels on either side…allow bygones to be bygones, and look to the present & future only.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.”
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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
“That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence built.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us
from the support of a cause we believe to be just.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“If this country is ever demoralized, it will come from trying to live without work.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God cannot retain it.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.”
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Abraham Lincoln
