Abraham Lincoln on Success Quotes

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed."

"I have a stepping stone to every success."

"The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself."

"Work, work, work, is the main thing."

"When some one charged Gen. Grant, in the President’s hearing, with drinking too much liquor, Mr. Lincoln, recalling Gen. Grant’s successes, said that if he could find out what brand of whisky Grant drank, he would send a barrel of it to all the other commanders. The New York Times, October 30, 1863"

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

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

"I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back."

"I am a success today because I had a friend who believed in me."

"The mystic chords of memory... will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

"And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years."

"That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well."

"The struggle of today, is not altogether for today—it is for a vast future also."

"Whatever you are, be a good one."

"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."

"If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend."

"Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition."

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

"I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go."

"A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones."

"Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way."

"In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere."

"Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong."

"The best way to predict your future is to create it."

"I have no other ambition so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem."

"Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."

"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 am not a fast walker, but I never walk backwards."

"The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence."

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing."

"The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that any body wishes to hinder him."

"The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have referred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this if also they choose, but the Executive as such has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present Government as it came to his hands and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor."

"I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be."