Abraham Lincoln Quotes

Motivational Abraham Lincoln Quotes

1. “ In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. ” – Abraham Lincoln
2. “ Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. ” – Abraham Lincoln
3. “ The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. ” – Abraham Lincoln
4. “ Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm. ” – Abraham Lincoln
5. “ You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was. ” – Abraham Lincoln
6. “ Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition. ” – Abraham Lincoln
7. “ If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. ” – Abraham Lincoln
8. “ 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
9. “ 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
10. “ If you trust, you will be disappointed occasionally, but if you mistrust, you will be miserable all the time. ” – Abraham Lincoln
11. “ I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice. ” – Abraham Lincoln
12. “ Important principles may, and must, be inflexible. ” – Abraham Lincoln
13. “ I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot. ” – Abraham Lincoln
14. “ You can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose. ” – Abraham Lincoln
15. “ Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle. ” – Abraham Lincoln
16. “ I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday. ” – Abraham Lincoln
17. “ Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be. ” – Abraham Lincoln
18. “ Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other. ” – Abraham Lincoln

 

Abraham Lincoln Civil War Quotes

1. “ I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races: that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. ” – Abraham Lincoln
2. “ 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
3. “ Let the people know the truth and the country is safe. ” – Abraham Lincoln
4. “ If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that. I have here stated my purpose according to my official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free. ” – Abraham Lincoln
5. “ I am not in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office. ” – Abraham Lincoln
6. “ My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. ” – Abraham Lincoln
7. “ Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damages morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hung. ” – Abraham Lincoln
8. “ There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending. ” – Abraham Lincoln
9. “ From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide. ” – Abraham Lincoln
10. “ Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. ” – Abraham Lincoln
11. “ Care for him who shall have borne the battle. ” – Abraham Lincoln
12. “ It is rather for us 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. ” – Abraham Lincoln
13. “ 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

 

Abraham Lincoln Humorous Quotes

1. “ Tell the truth and you won't have so much to remember. ” – Abraham Lincoln
2. “ No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent. ” – Abraham Lincoln
3. “ 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
4. “ I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how a man could look up into the heavens and say there is no God. ” – Abraham Lincoln
5. “ Avoid popularity if you would have peace. ” – Abraham Lincoln
6. “ Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them. ” – Abraham Lincoln
7. “ He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met. ” – Abraham Lincoln
8. “ Force is all conquering, but it's victories are short lived. ” – Abraham Lincoln
9. “ As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. ” – Abraham Lincoln
10. “ Well, I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals. ” – Abraham Lincoln
11. “ Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. ” – Abraham Lincoln
12. “ The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time. ” – Abraham Lincoln
13. “ No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens. ” – Abraham Lincoln

 

Abraham Lincoln on Slavery Quotes

1. “ So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself. ” – Abraham Lincoln
2. “ I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." ” – Abraham Lincoln
3. “ My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not to either save or destroy Slavery. ” – Abraham Lincoln
4. “ In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all, and it comes with bitter agony. Perfect relief is not possible, except with the passing of time. ” – Abraham Lincoln
5. “ If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. ” – Abraham Lincoln
6. “ Slavery is founded on the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it on his love of justice. These principles are in eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. ” – Abraham Lincoln
7. “ We think slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the territories, where our votes will reach it. ” – Abraham Lincoln
8. “ Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope. ” – Abraham Lincoln
9. “ The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves. ” – Abraham Lincoln
10. “ The master not only governs the slave without his consent, but he governs him by a set of rules altogether different from those which he prescribes for himself. Allow ALL the governed an equal voice in the government, and that, and that only, is self-government. ” – Abraham Lincoln

 

Democracy Quotes 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

“ Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power. ” – Abraham Lincoln

“ 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. ” – Abraham Lincoln

“ The ballot is stronger than the bullet. ” – Abraham Lincoln

“ Democracy is "government of, by and for the people". ” – Abraham Lincoln

 

Abraham Lincoln Quotes About Freedom

1. “ America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. ” – Abraham Lincoln
2. “ Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. ” – Abraham Lincoln
3. “ 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
4. “ Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought ” – Abraham Lincoln
5. “ Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. ” – Abraham Lincoln
6. “ I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the Declaration of Independence that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence, I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it. ” – Abraham Lincoln
7. “ 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. ” – Abraham Lincoln
8. “ In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. ” – Abraham Lincoln
9. “ Freedom is the last, best hope of earth. ” – Abraham Lincoln
10. “ I intend no modification of my oft-expressed wish that all men everywhere could be free. ” – Abraham Lincoln
11. “ 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
12. “ Do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, the Declaration of Independence. ” – Abraham Lincoln
13. “ Freedom is the natural condition of the human race, in which the Almighty intended men to live. Those who fight the purpose of the Almighty will not succeed. They always have been, they always will be beaten. ” – Abraham Lincoln
14. “ We were proclaiming ourselves political hypocrites before the world, by thus fostering Human Slavery and proclaiming ourselves, at the same time, the sole friends of Human Freedom. ” – Abraham Lincoln

 

Abraham Lincoln Quotes About Leadership

1. “ You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. ” – Abraham Lincoln
2. “ Commitment is what transforms a promise into a reality... Commitment is the stuff character is made of; the power to change the face of things. It is the daily triumph of integrity over skepticism. ” – Abraham Lincoln
3. “ Honor is better than honors. ” – Abraham Lincoln
4. “ I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. ” – Abraham Lincoln
5. “ The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions. ” – Abraham Lincoln
6. “ I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference. ” – Abraham Lincoln
7. “ The trouble with too many people is they believe the realm of truth always lies within their vision. ” – Abraham Lincoln
8. “ The money power preys on the nation in times of peace, and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. ” – Abraham Lincoln
9. “ Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. ” – Abraham Lincoln
10. “ Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. ” – Abraham Lincoln
11. “ 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
12. “ 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
13. “ A house divided against itself cannot stand. ” – Abraham Lincoln
14. “ A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have. ” – Abraham Lincoln
15. “ What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself. ” – Abraham Lincoln