“Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it, 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to
succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“He whose wisdom surpasses that of all philosophers, has declared that 'a house divided against itself cannot stand”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.”
―
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
“If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I don't like to hear cut and dried sermons. No—when I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.”
―
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
“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.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“And having thus chosen our course, without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in GOD, and go forward without fear, and with manly hearts.
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I have seen your dispatch expressing your unwillingness to break your hold where you are. Neither am I willing. Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke...”
―
Abraham Lincoln
