Abraham Lincoln Quotes

I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

He who molds the public sentiment… makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.

In my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say in advance, there will be no blood shed unless it be forced upon the government. The government will not use force unless force is used against it.

When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying.

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.

We can succeed only by concert. It is not, ‘Can any of us imagine better,’ but, ‘Can we all do better?’

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

The most reliable way to predict the future is to create it.

A private soldier has as much right to justice as a major-general.

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.

Gold is good in its place; but loving, brave, patriotic men are better than gold.

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

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

Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.

My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families – second families, perhaps I should say.

If there should prove to be one real, living Free State Democrat in Kansas, I suggest that it might be well to catch him and stuff and preserve his skin as an interesting specimen of that soon-to-be-extinct variety of the genus Democrat.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.