“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
“Don't give up. Come on. Just keep on trying. Don't frown. Smile! You can do it. If you just try a little harder. I've got a feeling this whole thing might just work out okay. You'll see. Don't give up. Tomorrow is a brand new day. Now I want to see all of you get up on your feet and look like you're enjoying yourselves. Come on, let's see some of that famous ‘Pennsylvania optimism’ I've heard so much about..." [Excerpted from the recently discovered preamble to Gettysburg Address]”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The struggle of today, is not altogether for today - it is for a vast future also.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it." I am loath to close. 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, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“if you want your name to be remembered after your death either do something worth writing or write some thing worth reading”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“A farce or comedy is best played; a tragedy is best read at home.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I am slow to listen to criminations among friends, and never expose their quarrels on either side…allow bygones to be bygones, and look to the present & future only.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Anything can be a bucket if you try hard enough and believe.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Don't worry when you are not recognized but strive to be worthy of recognition”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Don't give up. Come on. Just keep on trying. Don't frown. Smile! You can do it. If you just try a little harder. I've got a feeling this whole thing might just work out okay. You'll see. Don't give up. Tomorrow is a brand new day. Now I want to see all of you get up on your feet and look like you're enjoying yourselves. Come on, let's see some of that famous ‘Pennsylvania optimism’ I've heard so much about...”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Let me not be understood as saying that there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously observed.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Towering genius distains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
