“I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”

“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”

“Don't give up. Come on. Just keep on trying. Don't frown. Smile! You can do it. If you just try a little harder. I've got a feeling this whole thing might just work out okay. You'll see. Don't give up. Tomorrow is a brand new day. Now I want to see all of you get up on your feet and look like you're enjoying yourselves. Come on, let's see some of that famous ‘Pennsylvania optimism’ I've heard so much about..." [Excerpted from the recently discovered preamble to Gettysburg Address]”

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

“Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country's cause. Honor, also, to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field and serves, as he best can, the same cause.”

“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. ”

“Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.”

“A farce or comedy is best played; a tragedy is best read at home.”

“Life is hard but so very beautiful”

“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.” 

“Be not deceived. Revolutions do not go backward.”

“And this, too, shall pass away.' How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour  of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!”

“No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens. ”

“It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelity.”

“The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.”