Quotes from Abraham Lincoln

Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.

Die when I may, 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.

If this country is ever demoralized, it will come from trying to live without work.

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!

Stand with anyone that is right; stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God cannot retain it.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence

Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man. (When a skeptic expressed surprise to see him reading a Bible)

Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end you are sure to succeed.

Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.

Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.

Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality.

Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

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.

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

in times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.

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's 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.

Force is all conquering, but it's victories are short lived.

You can't make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak