“Military glory--that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood--that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy...”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Here in my heart, my happiness, my house.
Here inside the lighted window is my love, my hope, my life.
Peace is my companion on the pathway winding to the threshold.
Inside this portal dwells new strength in the security, serenity, and radiance of those I love above life itself.
Here two will build new dreams--dreams that tomorrow will come true.
The world over, these are the thoughts at eventide when footsteps turn ever homeward.
In the haven of the hearthside is rest and peace and comfort.”
―
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
“Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“If Abraham Lincoln were alive now, he'd roll over in his grave.”
―
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 But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously observed.”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
“in times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Let no feeling of discouragement prey
upon you, and in the end you
are sure to succeed.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. --February 22, 1861”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to
succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“If any man at this day sincerely believes that a proper division of local from federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his position by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can. But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live" were of the same opinion - thus substituting falsehood and deception for truthful evidence and fair argument.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
