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The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, May 19, 1856
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can not fool all the people all of the time.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, 1856
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 their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, First Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1861
Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, Jan. 27, 1838
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, 1865
It is best not to swap horses while crossing the river.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, reply to National Union League, June 9, 1864
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and cause me to tremble for safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic destroyed.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to Col. William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864
There is not a more fatal error to young lawyers than relying too much on speechmaking. If any one, upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law, his case is a failure in advance.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, notes for a lecture, Jul. 1, 1850?
Whatever you are, be a good one.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, attributed
Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, Feb. 27, 1860
If I am killed, I can die but once; but to live in constant dread of it, is to die over and over again.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, attributed
I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to. I wish to God that such a system prevailed all over the world.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, Mar. 5, 1860
We shall sooner have the bird by hatching the egg than by smashing it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, attributed
Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other right.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech to Congress, Dec. 3, 1861
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, Mar. 17, 1865
When you have got an elephant by the hind leg, and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, attributed
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to H.L. Pierce, Apr. 6, 1859
Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Lincoln's Own Stories
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, attributed
I distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of friends who would hold my hands while my enemies stab me.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to Reverdy Johnson, Jul. 26, 1862
Let us 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, speech, Feb. 27, 1860
Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, memorandum for law lecture, 1850
It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, First Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1861
I have a congenital aversion to failure.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to George E. Pickett, Feb. 22, 1841
Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity; and none will do it enthusiastically. Posterity has done nothing for us; and theorize on it as we may, practically we shall do very little for it, unless we are made to think we are at the same time doing something for ourselves.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, Feb. 22, 1842
This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert, real zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world, enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites, causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many good men among ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, Oct. 16, 1854
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to Isham Reavis, Nov. 5, 1855
No organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, First Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1861
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, Jun. 16, 1858
The one victory we can ever call complete will be that one which proclaims that there is not one slave or one drunkard on the face of God's green earth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to George E. Pickett, Feb. 22, 1841
If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease. There is no other alternative, for continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such a case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them, for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such a minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it?... Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, First Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1861
Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it, "all men are created equal except negroes." When the Know-nothings get control, it will read, "all men are created equal except negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty--to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to Joshua F. Speed, Aug. 24, 1855
In my judgment, such of us as have never fallen victims have been spared more by the absence of appetite, than from any mental or moral superiority over those who have.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, Feb. 22, 1842
I am not accustomed to the language of eulogy. I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women. But I must say, that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, Mar. 18, 1864
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