Abraham Lincoln Quotes

647 Sourced Quotes

I believe I shall never be old enough to speak without embarrassment when I have nothing to talk about.

Abraham Lincoln
Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result; but even these, are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human heart. That something, is the principle of "Liberty to all" the principle that clears the path for all-gives hope to all-and, by consequence, enterprize [sic], and industry to all.

Abraham Lincoln
Politicians [are] a set of men who have interests aside from the interests of the people, and who, to say the most of them, are, taken as a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men. I say this with the greater freedom because, being a politician myself, none can regard it as personal.

Abraham Lincoln
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...

Abraham Lincoln
In a great national crisis like ours unanimity of action among those seeking a common end is very desirable—almost indispensable. And yet no approach to such unanimity is attainable unless some deference shall be paid to the will of the majority simply because it is the will of the majority.

Abraham Lincoln
The one victory we can ever call complete will be that one which proclaims that there is not one slave or one drunkard on the face of God's green earth.

Abraham Lincoln
Labor is like any other commodity in the market—increase the demand for it and you increase the price of it. Reduce the supply of black labor by colonizing the black laborer out of the country, and by precisely so much you increase the demand for and wages of white labor.

Abraham Lincoln
I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.

Abraham Lincoln
When Judge Douglas says that whoever, or whatever community, wants slaves, they have a right to have them, he is perfectly logical if there is nothing wrong in the institution; but if you admit that it is wrong, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong.

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

Abraham Lincoln
I freely acknowledge myself the servant of the people, according to the bond of service - the United States Constitution; and that, as such, I am responsible to them.

Abraham Lincoln
It is rather for us here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.

Abraham Lincoln
If a man will stand up and assert, and repeat and re-assert, that two and two do not make four, I know nothing in the power of argument that can stop him.

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
I am not a very sentimental man; and the best sentiment I can think of is, that if you collect the signatures of all persons who are no less distinguished than I, you will have a very undistinguishing mass of names.

Abraham Lincoln
I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this, and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them.

Abraham Lincoln
If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that 'all men are created equal,' and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.

Abraham Lincoln
Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We…will be remembered in spite of ourselves.

Abraham Lincoln
The democrats had just been whipped in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and seized upon the unfortunate Harper's Ferry affair to influence other elections then pending. They said to each other, 'Jump in, now's your chance', and were sorry there were not more killed. But they didn't succeed well. Let them go on with their howling. They will succeed when by slandering women you get them to love you, and by slandering men you get them to vote for you.

Abraham Lincoln
When you lack interest in the case the job will very likely lack skill and diligence in the performance.

Abraham Lincoln
There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it.

Abraham Lincoln
There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. In any case that arises, as for instance, the promulgation of abolitionism, one of two positions is necessarily true; that is, the thing is right within itself, and therefore deserves the protection of all law and all good citizens; or, it is wrong, and therefore proper to be prohibited by legal enactments; and in neither case, is the interposition of mob law, either necessary, justifiable, or excusable.

Abraham Lincoln
If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature.

Abraham Lincoln
I could not sleep when I got on such a hunt for an idea until I had caught it;...This was a kind of passion with me, and it has stuck by me; for I am never easy now, when I am handling a thought, till I have bounded it north, and bounded it south, and bounded it east, and bounded it west.

Abraham Lincoln
When…you have succeeded in dehumanizing the Negro, when you have put him down and made it forever impossible for him to be but as the beasts of the field; when you have extinguished his soul and placed him where the ray of hope is blown out in darkness like that which broods over the spirits of the damned, are you quite sure that the demon you have roused will not turn and rend you?

Abraham Lincoln