Abraham Lincoln Quotes

"Resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer."

"It is in order that each of you may have through this free government which we have enjoyed, an open field and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise and intelligence; that you may all have equal privileges in the race of life, with all its desirable human aspirations. It is for this the struggle should be maintained, that we may not lose our birthright — not only for one, but for two or three years. The nation is worth fighting for, to secure such an inestimable jewel."

"I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday."

"All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. Attributed in The Life of Abraham Lincoln (1866) by Josiah G. Holland, p. 23; also in The Real Life of Abraham Lincoln (1867) by George Alfred Townsend, p. 6; according to Townsend, Lincoln made this remark to his law partner, William Herndon. It is disputed whether this quote refers to Lincoln's natural mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, who died when he was nine years old, or to his stepmother, Sarah Bush (Johnston) Lincoln."

"My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure."

"I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him. Letter to Allen N. Ford (11 August 1846), reported in Roy Prentice Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings (1990 )"

"Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief—resolve to be honest."

"You may adopt all the policies you please, but how they will be carried out depends on him."

"I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has."

"My parents were both born in Virginia of undistinguished families... My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks..."

"I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, 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. Reply to Missouri Committee of Seventy (30 September 1864)"

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."

"I am a living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has."

"It has long been a grave question whether any government, not too strong for the liberties of its people, can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies. On this point the present rebellion brought our government to a severe test, and a presidential election occurring in regular course during the rebellion, added not a little to the strain."

"Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle."

"The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded. Speech in the House of Representatives (20 June 1848)"

"Second Inaugural Address (4 March 1865)"

"Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition."

"The Confederacy stands for slavery and the Union for freedom. Private conversation (January 1862)"

"Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties. And not to Democrats alone do I make this appeal, but to all who love these great and true principles. Speech at Kalamazoo, Michigan (27 August 1856), Collected Works 1:391"

"Address to a congratulatory serenade on his reelection (10 November 1864) which occurred two days after the United States presidential election of 1864; in "The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Volume Seven, Constitutional Edition", edited by Arthur Brooks Lapsley and released as "The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Volume Seven, by Abraham Lincoln" by Project Gutenberg on July 5, 2009."

"The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."

"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be ``the Union as it was.´´ If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them."

"Free eBook of Writings of Abraham Lincoln, the - Volume 1: 1832-1843 at Project Gutenberg"

"We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain."

"As leaving some grand waterfall, We, lingering, list its roar — So memory will hallow all We've known, but know no more. Canto I"

"He desires to preserve the Government, that it may be administered for all as it was administered by the men who made it. Loyal citizens everywhere have the right to claim this of their government, and the government has no right to withhold or neglect it. It is not perceived that in giving it there is any coercion, any conquest, or any subjugation in any just sense of those terms."

"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 the light I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right — stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong. Reported as an inscription quoting Lincoln in an English college in The Baptist Teacher for Sunday-school Workers : Vol. 36 (August 1905), p. 483. The portion beginning with "stand with anybody..." is from the 16 October 1854 Peoria speech.."

"I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."

"Abraham Lincoln his hand and pen he will be good but God knows When Manuscript poem, as a teenager (ca. 1824–1826), in "Lincoln as Poet" at Library of Congress : Presidents as Poets also in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953) edited by Roy. P. Basler, Vol. 1"

"I do not like that man. I must get to know him better. As quoted in Costs of Administering Reparation for Work Injuries in Illinois (1952) by Alfred Fletcher Conard; also in Residence Laws : Road Block to Human Welfare, a Symposium (1956), p. 28"

"My dear Sir: Herewith is a little sketch, as you requested. There is not much of it, for the reason, I suppose, that there is not much of me. If anything be made out of it, I wish it to be modest, and not to go beyond the material. If it were thought necessary to incorporate anything from any of my speeches, I suppose there would be no objection. Of course it must not appear to have been written by myself."

"That our government should have been maintained in its original form from its establishment until now, is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed, and crumbled away. Through that period, it was felt by all, to be an undecided experiment; now, it is understood to be a successful one."