If this is coffee, please bring me some tea;
but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
- Abraham Lincoln
Marriage is neither heaven nor hell,
it is simply purgatory.
- Abraham Lincoln
No matter how much cats fight,
there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
- Abraham Lincoln
I care not much for a man's religion
whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
- Abraham Lincoln
The Lord prefers common-looking people.
That is why he makes so many of them.
- Abraham Lincoln
Avoid popularity if you would have peace.
- Abraham Lincoln
Every one desires to live long,
but no one would be old.
- Abraham Lincoln
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
- Abraham Lincoln
Books serve to show a man
that those original thoughts of his
aren't very new at all.
- Abraham Lincoln
The best thing about the future is
that it comes one day at a time.
- Abraham Lincoln
It has been my experience that folks who
have no vices, have very few virtues.
- Abraham Lincoln
Am I not destroying my enemies
when I make friends of them?
- 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
Never stir up litigation.
A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.
- Abraham Lincoln
Common looking people are the best in the world:
that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
- Abraham Lincoln
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
- 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
I can make more generals, but horses cost money.
- Abraham Lincoln
These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert,
to fleece the people.
- Abraham Lincoln
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
When I hear a man preach,
I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.
- 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
Hold on with a bulldog grip,
and chew and choke as much as possible.
- Abraham Lincoln
Knavery and flattery are blood relations.
- Abraham Lincoln
Things may come to those who wait,
but only the things left by those who hustle.
- Abraham Lincoln
God must love the common man, he made so many of them.
- Abraham Lincoln
No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)
Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln
I don't like that man.
I must get to know him better.
- Abraham Lincoln
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
I have always found that mercy bears
richer fruits than strict justice.
- Abraham Lincoln
The philosophy of the school room in one generation
will be the philosophy of government in the next.
- 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
Some single mind must be master,
else there will be no agreement in anything.
- Abraham Lincoln
When I do good, I feel good.
When I do bad, I feel bad.
That's my religion.
- Abraham Lincoln
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery,
I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
- Abraham Lincoln
If you look for the bad in people
expecting to find it, you surely will.
- Abraham Lincoln
All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
- Abraham Lincoln
Towering genius disdains a beaten path.
It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
- Abraham Lincoln
With the fearful strain that is on me night and day,
if I did not laugh I should die.
- Abraham Lincoln
The time comes upon every public man
when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.
- 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
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.
- Abraham Lincoln
If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog?
Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg.
- Abraham Lincoln
If I had eight hours to chop down a tree,
I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax.
- Abraham Lincoln
People are just as happy
as they make up their minds to be.
- Abraham Lincoln
Government of the people,
by the people,
for the people,
shall not perish from this Earth.
- Abraham Lincoln
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat,
for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator,
while the wolf denounces him for the same act
as the destroyer of liberty,
especially as the sheep was a black one.
Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed
upon a definition of the word liberty;
and precisely the same difference
prevails today among us human creatures
- Abraham Lincoln
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed
is more important than any other one thing.
- Abraham Lincoln
Give me six hours to chop down a tree
and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
- Abraham Lincoln
To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets,
but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
- Abraham Lincoln
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
- Abraham Lincoln
The best way to destroy an enemy
is to make him a friend.
- Abraham Lincoln
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
That some achieve great success,
is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
- Abraham Lincoln
The people themselves, and not their servants,
can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.
- Abraham Lincoln
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
- Abraham Lincoln
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
- Abraham Lincoln
Public sentiment is everything.
With public sentiment, nothing can fail.
Without it, nothing can succeed.
- Abraham Lincoln
Everybody likes a compliment.
- Abraham Lincoln
He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
- 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
I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
- Abraham Lincoln
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.
- Abraham Lincoln
The people will save their government,
if the government itself will allow them.
- Abraham Lincoln
Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.
- Abraham Lincoln
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.
- Abraham Lincoln
I'm a slow walker, but I never walk backward.
- Abraham Lincoln
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
Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.
- Abraham Lincoln
The best way to get a bad law repealed
is to enforce it strictly.
- Abraham Lincoln
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.