“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“These [the armed forces] are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where.... Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other”
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Abraham Lincoln
“If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution; certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”
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Abraham Lincoln
