“I was a little cross.I ask pardon. If I do get up a little temper I have no sufficient time to keep it up.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“These [the armed forces] are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where.... Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“The loss of enemies does not compensate for the loss of friends.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“It is the eternal struggle between these two principles - right and wrong - throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and wll ever to struggle.”
―
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.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I have destroyed my enemies when I make friends with them”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Truth is generally the best vindication against slander”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power. … But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. (“A National Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer.” Proclamation March 30, 1863)”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I shall adopt new Muse as fast as they appear to be true Muse.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
