“What is conservatism? Is it not the adherence to the old and tried against the new and untried?”

“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 have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.”

“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 semicolin; it's a useful little chap”

“If Abraham Lincoln were alive now, he'd roll over in his grave.”

“A nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure.”

“The struggle of today, is not altogether for today - it is for a vast future also.”

“Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought a flower would grow.”

“What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.”

“I am very little inclined on any occasion to say anything unless I hope to produce some good by it.”

“You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence”

“I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”

“If friendship is your weakest point, then you are the strongest person in the world.”

“It's not me who can't keep a secret. It's the people I tell that can't.”

“A half effort is a wasted effort.”