“Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature, opposition to it in his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism, and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man. (When a skeptic expressed surprise to see him reading a Bible)”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Teach the children so it won't be necessary to teach the adults.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser - in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“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
“People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
