“To believe in the things you can see and touch is no belief at all - but to believe in the unseen is a triumph and a blessing.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.”
―
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
“The written word may be man's greatest invention. It allows us to
converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Through their deeds, the dead of battle have spoken more eloquently for themselves than any of the living ever could. But we can only honor them by rededicating ourselves to the cause for which they gave a last full measure of devotion. ”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“He whose wisdom surpasses that of all philosophers, has declared that 'a house divided against itself cannot stand”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Let [the Constitution] be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges, let it be written in primers, in spelling books and in almanacs, let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Such will be a great lesson of peace: teaching men that what they cannot take by and election, neither can they take by war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both *may* be, and one *must* be, wrong. God cannot be *for* and *against* the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party - and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaption to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true - that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By His mere great power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either *saved* or *destroyed* the Union without human contest. Yet the contest began, And, having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Military glory--that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood--that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy...”
―
Abraham Lincoln
