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

“Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.”

“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.” 

“If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.”

“He whose wisdom surpasses that of all philosophers, has declared that 'a house divided against itself cannot stand”

“There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.”

“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.”

“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.”

“Everybody likes compliment.

“Investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”

“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.”

“Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”

“The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.”

“It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river.”