Abraham Lincoln quotes
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“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people. As long as blacks continue to live with the whites they constitute a threat to the national life. Family life may also collapse and the increase of mixed breed bastards may some day challenge the supremacy of the white man.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Sir, 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.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“I have had so many evidences of [God's] direction, so many instances when I have been controlled by some other power than my own will, that I cannot doubt that this power comes from above.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“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.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“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.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”
-- Abraham LincolnSource : Abraham Lincoln, Jack Stevenson (2017). “Abraham Lincoln: 100 Influential Quotes of My Life”, Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
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“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
-- Abraham LincolnSource : Attributed in "Forbes", Volume 102, 1968.
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“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“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 -
“Destroy your enemy by making him your friend.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“I never encourage deceit, and falsehood, especially if you have got a bad memory, is the worst enemy a fellow can have. The fact is truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstances are.”
-- Abraham LincolnSource : Rosemary Altea (2008). “A Matter of Life and Death: Remarkable True Stories of Hope and Healing”, p.203, Penguin
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“These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“I wish all men to be free. I wish the material prosperity of the already free which I feel sure the extinction of slavery would bring.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Our political problem now is "Can we, as a nation, continue together permanentlyforever--half slave, and half free?" The problem is too mighty for me. May God, in his mercy, superintend the solution.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“Kindness is the only service that will stand the storm of life and not wash out.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
-- Abraham LincolnSource : Abraham Lincoln (1982). “Abraham Lincoln, wisdom & wit”, Peter Pauper Pr
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“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“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.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.”
-- Abraham LincolnSource : Quoted in Philip Henry Stanhope, Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington (1888) (entry for 3 Nov. 1831) See Francis Bacon 7; Montaigne 4; Franklin Roosevelt 6; Thoreau 16
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“My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
-- Abraham LincolnSource : "Whip Smart: A Memoir". Book by Melissa Febos, therumpus.net. 2010.
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“I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.”
-- 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 -
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“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.”
-- Abraham LincolnSource : John Stuart Blackie (1858). “On beauty: three discourses delivered in the University of Edinburgh”, p.104
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“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.”
-- Abraham LincolnSource : Martin D. Tullai, Abraham Lincoln (1998). “Speaking of Abraham Lincoln”
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“We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“I can make more generals, but horses cost money.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“The ballot is stronger than the bullet.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Public opinion in this country is everything.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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“I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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