Selected Quotes By Abraham Lincoln
"To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own."
Abraham Lincoln, Kindness
"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 should 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, Freedom
"I am not concerned that you have fallen -- I am concerned that you arise."
Abraham Lincoln, Anger and Fighting
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other."
Abraham Lincoln, Government
"It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him."
Abraham Lincoln, Happiness, Belief
"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, and beer."
Abraham Lincoln, Government
"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."
Abraham Lincoln, Management
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry."
Abraham Lincoln, Intelligence/Wisdom
"You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."
Abraham Lincoln, Life
"You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was."
Abraham Lincoln, Life
"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues."
Abraham Lincoln, Intelligence/Wisdom
"The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he made so many of them."
Abraham Lincoln, Belief
"In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once."
Abraham Lincoln, Happiness
"It's not me who can't keep a secret. It's the people I tell that can't."
Abraham Lincoln, Life
"I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday."
Abraham Lincoln, Intelligence/Wisdom
"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being."
Abraham Lincoln, Life
"Every man's happiness is his own responsibility."
Abraham Lincoln, Happiness
"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."
Abraham Lincoln, Life
"I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."
Abraham Lincoln, Belief
"Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle."
Abraham Lincoln, Life
"All I have learned, I learned from books."
Abraham Lincoln, Intelligence/Wisdom
"If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."
Abraham Lincoln, Life
"My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh -- anything but work."
Abraham Lincoln, Work
"I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice."
Abraham Lincoln, Life
"The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time."
Abraham Lincoln, Life
"No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar."
Abraham Lincoln, Truth
"I will prepare and some day my chance will come."
Abraham Lincoln, Goals
"Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters."
Abraham Lincoln, Government
"Tact: the ability to describe others as they see themselves."
Abraham Lincoln, Intelligence/Wisdom
"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."
Abraham Lincoln, Intelligence/Wisdom
"I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all."
Abraham Lincoln, Happiness
"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 chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
Abraham Lincoln, Anger and Fighting, Friendship
"The best way to predict your future is to create it."
Abraham Lincoln, Goals
"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing."
Abraham Lincoln, Success
"Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing."
Abraham Lincoln, Truth
"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
Abraham Lincoln, Truth
"I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day."
Abraham Lincoln, Goals
"I would rather be a little nobody, than to be a evil somebody."
Abraham Lincoln, Kindness
"Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm."
Abraham Lincoln, Goals
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."
Abraham Lincoln, Intelligence/Wisdom
"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 up to what light I have."
Abraham Lincoln, Truth, Success
"When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."
Abraham Lincoln, Problems
"I don't like that man. I must get to know him better."
Abraham Lincoln, Intelligence/Wisdom
"Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it."
Abraham Lincoln, Kindness
"I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how a man could look up into the heavens and say there is no God."
Abraham Lincoln, Belief
"There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes."
Abraham Lincoln, Life
"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."
Abraham Lincoln, Freedom
"I am a slow walker, but I never walk back."
Abraham Lincoln, Goals
"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves."
Abraham Lincoln, Freedom
"When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion."
Abraham Lincoln, Belief
"Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all."
Abraham Lincoln, Intelligence/Wisdom
"I'm a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down."
Abraham Lincoln, Friendship
"My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read."
Abraham Lincoln, Friendship
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln, Government, Freedom
"Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"
Abraham Lincoln, Anger and Fighting, Friendship
"Whatever you are, be a good one."
Abraham Lincoln, Goals
"Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be."