“The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name, liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names, liberty and tyranny. The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“A farmer had a vicious bull that took after anybody who tried to cross the field. One day a neighbor climbed the fence and was soon running for his life. This man was fast, though, and he got to a tree with the bull close behind. There was no time to climb the tree, so he led the bull in a chase around the tree. He finally was able to grab the bull by the tail. The bull was now at a disadvantage. He couldn’t catch the man and he couldn’t shake him from his tail. The more they ran the madder the bull got. He pawed up the earth and bellowed until you could hear him miles away. Finally, he broke into a dead run, the man still hanging onto his tail. "The neighbor, now dragging along behind, shouted at the bull, 'Darn you, who commenced this fuss?' "That’s our situation here,” summarized Lincoln. “It's our duty to settle this fuss at the earliest possible moment, no matter who commenced it”.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Stand with anyone that is right; stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, "And this too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!”
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Abraham Lincoln
“You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Anything can be a bucket if you try hard enough and believe.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us
from the support of a cause we believe to be just.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“in times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“I am slow to learn and slow to forget that which I have learned. My mind is like a piece of steel, very hard to scratch any thing on it and almost impossible after you get it there to rub it out.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
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Abraham Lincoln
“all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Don’t criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
