Abraham Lincoln Quotes

646 Sourced Quotes

It is called the Army of the Potomac but it is only McClellan's bodyguard.... If McClellan is not using the army, I should like to borrow it for a while.

Abraham Lincoln
Of a general who sent dispatches headed 'Headquarters in the Saddle':
The trouble with Hooker is that he's got his headquarters where his hindquarters ought to be.

Abraham Lincoln
I am a patient man — always willing to forgive on the Christian terms of repentance; and also to give ample time for repentance. Still I must save this government if possible.

Abraham Lincoln
In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book.

Abraham Lincoln
I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization.

Abraham Lincoln
You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time.
Also attributed to Phineas barnum

Abraham Lincoln
I never did ask more, nor ever was willing to accept less, than for all the States, and the people thereof, to take and hold their places, and their rights, in the Union, under the Constitution of the United States. For this alone have I felt authorized to struggle; and I seek neither more nor less now.

Abraham Lincoln
I turn, then, and look to the American people and to that God who has never forsaken them.

Abraham Lincoln
Sir; You are directed to have a transport.. sent to the colored colony of San Domingo to bring back to this country such of the colonists there as desire to return.

Abraham Lincoln
During my whole political life, I have loved and revered (Henry Clay) as a teacher and leader.

Abraham Lincoln
If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how—the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

Abraham Lincoln
The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.

Abraham Lincoln
The struggle of today, is not altogether for today — it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence, all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us.

Abraham Lincoln
If as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means, succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery; and, at the same time, in restoring a captive people to their long-lost father-land, with bright prospects for the future; and this too, so gradually, that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation.

Abraham Lincoln
Another illustration. When for the first time I met Mister Clay, the other day in the cars, in front of us sat an old gentleman with an enormous wen upon his neck. Everybody would say the wen was a great evil, and would cause the man's death after a while. But you couldn't cut it out, for he'd bleed to death in a minute. But would you engraft the seeds of that wen on the necks of sound and healthy men? He must endure and be patient, hoping for possible relief. The wen represents slavery on the neck of this country. This only applies to those who think slavery is wrong. Those who think it right would consider the snake a jewel, and the wen an ornament.

Abraham Lincoln
The Democracy are given to 'bushwhacking'. After having their errors and mis-statements continually thrust in their faces, they pay no heed, but go on howling about Seward and the 'irrepressible conflict'. That is 'bushwhacking'. So with John Brown and Harper's Ferry. They charge it upon the Republican party and ignominiously fail in all attempts to substantiate the charge. Yet they go on with their bushwhacking, the pack in full cry after John Brown.

Abraham Lincoln
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!

Abraham Lincoln
You dislike the emancipation proclamation; and, perhaps, would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional - I think differently.

Abraham Lincoln
A jury too often has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor.

Abraham Lincoln
These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.

Abraham Lincoln
The world is agreed that labor is the source from which human wants are mainly supplied. There is no dispute upon this point.

Abraham Lincoln
Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.

Abraham Lincoln
The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender of the principal insurgent army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace whose joyous expression can not be restrained. In the midst of this, however, He, from Whom all blessings flow, must not be forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being prepared, and will be duly promulgated.

Abraham Lincoln
Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged.

Abraham Lincoln
In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in the making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, and sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.

Abraham Lincoln
Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race and the other race being inferior and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.

Abraham Lincoln
I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.

Abraham Lincoln
Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.

Abraham Lincoln
"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
I thank you, in common with all others, who have thought fit, by their votes, to indorse the Republican cause. I rejoice with you in the success which has, so far, attended that cause. Yet in all our rejoicing let us neither express, nor cherish, any harsh feeling towards any citizen who, by his vote, has differed with us. Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling.

Abraham Lincoln