“As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I'm a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“And this, too, shall pass away.' How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour
of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The struggle of today, is not altogether for today - it is for a vast future also.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Two principles have stood face-to-face from the beginning of time; and they will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
