“Teach the children so it won't be necessary to teach the adults.”

“What is conservatism? Is it not the adherence to the old and tried against the new and untried?”

“No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.”

“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.”

“The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.”

“I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.”

“Determine that the thing can and shall be done and then... find the way.”

“Abraham Lincoln was asked by an aide about the church service he had attended. Lincoln responded that the minister was inspired, interesting, well-prepared, eloquent and the topic relevant. The aide said, “Then it was a good service?” Lincoln responded, “No.” The aide protested, “But, Mr. President, you said that the minister was inspired, interesting, well-prepared, eloquent, and that the topic was relevant.” “Yes,” replied Lincoln, “but he didn’t challenge us to do any great thing.”

“Stand with anyone that is right; stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.”

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — 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 government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” 

“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.”

“No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens. ”

“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”

“If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.”

“My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.”