“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“If any man at this day sincerely believes that a proper division of local from federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his position by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can. But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live" were of the same opinion - thus substituting falsehood and deception for truthful evidence and fair argument.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. --February 22, 1861”
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Abraham Lincoln
“no man who is resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention, still less can he afford to take the consequences, including the vitiation of his temper and the loss of self control, yield to larger things to which you show no more than equal rights, and yield to lesser ones though clearly your own, better give your path to a dog, than be bitten by him in contesting for the right, not even killing the dog, will cure the bite”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“This is a world of compensation; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.”
―
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
“He whose wisdom surpasses that of all philosophers, has declared that 'a house divided against itself cannot stand”
―
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.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Tis better people think you a fool, then open your mouth and erase all doubt.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The hen is the wisest of all the animal creation, because she never cackles until the egg is laid.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
