“You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside me.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“If friendship is your weakest point, then you are the strongest person in the world.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.”
―
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.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“God must have loved the plain people; He made so many of them.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
―
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
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
