“I fear you do not fully comprehend the danger of abridging the liberties of the people. Nothing but the very sternest necessity can ever justify it. A government had better go to the very extreme of toleration, than to do aught that could be construed into an interference with, or to jeopardize in any degree, the common rights of its citizens.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“A drop of honey gathers more flies than a gallon of gall”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. 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
“Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure. . . . If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us'; but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“A drop of honey gathers more flies than a gallon of gall.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Laughter can be used to sooth the mind and get rid of those awful thoughts.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I will study and prepare myself, and someday my chance will come.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all. ”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, "And this too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!”
―
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
“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
