Famous Quotes by Abraham Lincoln
Below are famous quotes by Abraham Lincoln - 16th president of US (1809 - 1865).
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other.... The prayers of both could not be answered--that of neither has been answered fully.
Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
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.
Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.
He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.
He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts.
I am for those means which will give the greatest good to the greatest number.
I am not concerned that you have fallen; I am concerned that you arise.
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.
I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come.
If I only had an hour to chop down a tree, I would spend the first 45 minutes sharpening my axe.
If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
If you look for the bad in people, you will surely find it.
If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.
In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all... Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You cannot now realize that you will ever feel better... And yet this is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again.
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.
It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.
It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.
Let me not be understood as saying that there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously observed.
Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.
Neither Heaven nor Hell. It is simply Purgatory.
No man resolved to make the most of himself has time to waste on personal contention.
No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he makes so many of them.
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.
The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.
The worst thing you can do for those you love is the things they could and should do themselves.
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
Those who would deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in. That everyone may receive at least a moderate education appears to be an objective of vital importance.
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 cords of memory shall swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of nature.
What is conservativism? Is it not the aherence to the old and tried against the new and untried?
Whatever you are, be a good one.
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that is my religion.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time.
Return to authors.
