“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.
Dear Madam,--
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
―
Abraham Lincoln
“What is conservatism? Is it not the adherence to the old and tried against the new and untried?”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“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 this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“If we magnified our successes as much as we magnify our disappointments, we'd all be much happier”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Towering genius disdains a beaten path... It sees no distinction in adding story to story... It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it...”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“. . . 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.
- President Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg address, November 19, 1863”
―
Abraham Lincoln
