“These [the armed forces] are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where.... Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“you can't escape tomorrow's responsibilities by evading it today”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“You can complain because a rose has thorns, or you can rejoice
Because the thorns have a rose.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“With educated people, I suppose, punctuation is a matter of rule; with me it is a matter of feeling. But I must say I have a great respect for the semicolin; it's a useful little chap”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”
―
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.”
―
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”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Upon the subject of education ... I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Towering genius distains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
