“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that this continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

“I am slow to listen to criminations among friends, and never expose their quarrels on either side…allow bygones to be bygones, and look to the present & future only.”

“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”

“The worst thing you can do for those you love is the things they could and should do themselves.”

“Force is all conquering, but it's victories are short lived.”

“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.” 

“Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damages morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hung”

“Peu importe ce que vous êtes. Soyez bons.”

“IF you are going to fight, don't let them talk you into negotiating. But, if you are going to negotiate, don't let them talk you into fighting.”

“A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded cannot be safely disregarded.”

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”

“Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is wrong.”

“There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.”

“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. ”

“if you want your name to be remembered after your death either do something worth writing or write some thing worth reading”