“If this country is ever demoralized, it will come from trying to live without work.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I will study and prepare myself, and someday my chance will come.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“These [the armed forces] are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where.... Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“It is the eternal struggle between these two principles - right and wrong - throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and wll ever to struggle.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“There has never been but one question in all civilization-how to keep a few men from saying to many men: You work and earn bread and we will eat it.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us
from the support of a cause we believe to be just.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“It's not me who can't keep a secret. It's the people I tell that can't.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Abraham Lincoln was asked by an aide about the church service he had attended. Lincoln responded that the minister was inspired, interesting, well-prepared, eloquent and the topic relevant. The aide said, “Then it was a good service?”
Lincoln responded, “No.” The aide protested,
“But, Mr. President, you said that the minister was inspired, interesting, well-prepared, eloquent, and that the topic was relevant.”
“Yes,” replied Lincoln, “but he didn’t challenge us to do any great thing.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it." I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
―
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
“Must is the word... You can not fail if you resolutely determine that you will not... Always bear in mind that your resolution to succeed is more important that any other thing.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelity.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
