“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

“One company can serve some of your needs all of the time, or all of your needs some of the time, but never both.”

“Well, I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals. ”

“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser - in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”

“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 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”

“Gold is good in it's place, but living, brave, patriotic men are better than gold.”

“But for this book we could not know right from wrong.”

“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”

“You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.”

“Resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer”

“And having thus chosen our course, without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in GOD, and go forward without fear, and with manly hearts.

“I am growing old enough not to care much for the MANNER of doing things.”

“Stand with anyone that is right; stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.”

“Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition... I have no other so great as that of being truely esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.”