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
The Lord prefers common-looking people.
That is why he makes so many of them.
- Abraham Lincoln
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
Knavery and flattery are blood relations.
- Abraham Lincoln
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
- Abraham Lincoln
Am I not destroying my enemies
when I make friends of them?
- Abraham Lincoln
Avoid popularity if you would have peace.
- 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
These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert,
to fleece the people.
- 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
I can make more generals, but horses cost money.
- Abraham Lincoln
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
- Abraham Lincoln
When I hear a man preach,
I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.
- 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
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
It has been my experience that folks who
have no vices, have very few virtues.
- Abraham Lincoln
Never stir up litigation.
A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.
- Abraham Lincoln
The best thing about the future is
that it comes one day at a time.
- Abraham Lincoln
Every one desires to live long,
but no one would be old.
- Abraham Lincoln
Common looking people are the best in the world:
that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
- Abraham Lincoln
Books serve to show a man
that those original thoughts of his
aren't very new at all.
- Abraham Lincoln
Hold on with a bulldog grip,
and chew and choke as much as possible.
- 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 have always found that mercy bears
richer fruits than strict justice.
- 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 don't like that man.
I must get to know him better.
- Abraham Lincoln
The philosophy of the school room in one generation
will be the philosophy of government in the next.
- Abraham Lincoln
When I do good, I feel good.
When I do bad, I feel bad.
That's my religion.
- 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
A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.
- Abraham Lincoln
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
- Abraham Lincoln
Whatever you are, be a good one.
- Abraham Lincoln
If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens,
you can never regain their respect and esteem.
- Abraham Lincoln
If you look for the bad in people
expecting to find it, you surely will.
- 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
That some achieve great success,
is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
- Abraham Lincoln
You have to do your own growing
no matter how tall your grandfather was.
- Abraham Lincoln
My great concern is not whether you have failed,
but whether you are content with your failure.
- Abraham Lincoln
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed
is more important than any other one thing.
- Abraham Lincoln
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
- Abraham Lincoln
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery,
I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
- 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
He who molds the public sentiment...
makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.
- Abraham Lincoln
As I would not be a slave,
so I would not be a master.
This expresses my idea of democracy.
- Abraham Lincoln
The people will save their government,
if the government itself will allow them.
- Abraham Lincoln
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
The best way to destroy an enemy
is to make him a friend.
- 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
No man is good enough to govern another man
without that other's consent.
- Abraham Lincoln
I don't know who my grandfather was;
I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
- Abraham Lincoln
The people themselves, and not their servants,
can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.
- Abraham Lincoln
Stand with anybody that stands right,
stand with him while he is right
and part with him when he goes wrong.
- Abraham Lincoln
Government of the people,
by the people,
for the people,
shall not perish from this Earth.
- Abraham Lincoln
Don't worry when you are not recognized,
but strive to be worthy of recognition.
- Abraham Lincoln
You cannot escape the responsibility
of tomorrow by evading it today.
- Abraham Lincoln
With the fearful strain that is on me night and day,
if I did not laugh I should die.
- Abraham Lincoln
The best way to get a bad law repealed
is to enforce it strictly.
- Abraham Lincoln
You cannot build character and courage by
taking away a man's initiative and independence.
- Abraham Lincoln
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
- Abraham Lincoln
Towering genius disdains a beaten path.
It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
- Abraham Lincoln
The time comes upon every public man
when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.
- Abraham Lincoln
Some single mind must be master,
else there will be no agreement in anything.
- Abraham Lincoln
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
I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
- Abraham Lincoln
Those who deny freedom to others
deserve it not for themselves.
- 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
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