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Biographical Information
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Famous Abraham Lincoln Quotes
With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.
All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother.
All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.
All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
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.
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
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.
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
As our case is new, we must think and act anew.
Avoid popularity if you would have peace.
Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
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.
Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.
Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.
Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
Everybody likes a compliment.
Fourscore 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.
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
God must love the common man, he made so many of them.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
He who molds the public sentiment... makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.
Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.
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.
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.
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.
I can make more generals, but horses cost money.
I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end... I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.
You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
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.
With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.
When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
Whatever you are, be a good one.
What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
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.
We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.
To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards out of men.
Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
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.
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
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.
These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.
There is nothing true anywhere, The true is nowhere to be seen; If you say you see the true, This seeing is not the true one.
There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, "Truth is the daughter of Time."
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.
The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.
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.
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.
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 philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.
The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.
The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.
The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he makes so many of them.
The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.
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.
The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.
The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
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.
Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.
Some day I shall be President.
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.
Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.
Public opinion in this country is everything.
People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.
No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
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