“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I am growing old enough not to care much for the MANNER of doing things.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“A tendancy to melancholy...let it be observed, is a misfortune, not a fault.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Women are the only people I am afraid of who I never thought would hurt me”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“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..." --from the recently discovered preamble to Gettysburg Address”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence built.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is wrong.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.
Dear Madam,--
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
―
Abraham Lincoln
“No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
