“If friendship is your weakest point, then you are the strongest person in the world.”

“I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”

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

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

“I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.”

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

“RESPONSE TO POLITICAL SMEAR TO ROBERT ALLEN New Salem, June 21, 1836 DEAR COLONEL:—I am told that during my absence last week you passed through this place, and stated publicly that you were in possession of a fact or facts which, if known to the public, would entirely destroy the prospects of N. W. Edwards and myself at the ensuing election; but that, through favor to us, you should forbear to divulge them. No one has needed favors more than I, and, generally, few have been less unwilling to accept them; but in this case favor to me would be injustice to the public, and therefore I must beg your pardon for declining it. That I once had the confidence of the people of Sangamon, is sufficiently evident; and if I have since done anything, either by design or misadventure, which if known would subject me to a forfeiture of that confidence, he that knows of that thing, and conceals it, is a traitor to his country’s interest. I find myself wholly unable to form any conjecture of what fact or facts, real or supposed, you spoke; but my opinion of your veracity will not permit me for a moment to doubt that you at least believed what you said. I am flattered with the personal regard you manifested for me; but I do hope that, on more mature reflection, you will view the public interest as a paramount consideration, and therefore determine to let the worst come. I here assure you that the candid statement of facts on your part, however low it may sink me, shall never break the tie of personal friendship between us. I wish an answer to this, and you are at liberty to publish both, if you choose. Very respectfully, A. LINCOLN.”

“A house divided cannot stand.”

“I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but holding it a sound maxim, that it is better to be only sometimes right, than at all times wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.”

“If this country is ever demoralized, it will come from trying to live without work.”

“I was a little cross.I ask pardon. If I do get up a little temper I have no sufficient time to keep it up.”

“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

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

“Laughter can be used to sooth the mind and get rid of those awful thoughts.”