“I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the inferences and observations following that presentation.
―
Abraham Lincoln
“If any man at this day sincerely believes that a proper division of local from federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his position by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can. But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live" were of the same opinion - thus substituting falsehood and deception for truthful evidence and fair argument.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“God must have loved the plain people; He made so many of them.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“you can't escape tomorrow's responsibilities by evading it today”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I consider the central idea pervading this struggle is the necessity that is upon us, of proving that popular govenment is not an absurdity. We must settle this question now, whether in a free government the minority have the right to break up the govenment whenever they choose. If we fail it will go far to prove the incapability of the people to govern themselves.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Let no feeling of discouragement prey
upon you, and in the end you
are sure to succeed.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.”
―
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
“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
“Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. 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
“You can complain because a rose has thorns, or you can rejoice
Because the thorns have a rose.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
