“The hen is the wisest of all the animal creation, because she never cackles until the egg is laid.”

“Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”

“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”

“I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.”

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”

“I am nothing, truth is everything.”

“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 semi-colon; it's a useful little chap.”

“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.” 

“You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry”

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

“Military glory--that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood--that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy...”

“Don't worry when you are not recognized but strive to be worthy of recognition”

“You cannot have the right to do what is wrong!”

“Anybody will do for you, but not for me. I must have somebody.”

“There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.”