Quotes from Abraham Lincoln

Let me not be understood as saying that there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously observed.

I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside me.

People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like. [in review of a book]

It is not in our forming battlements or bristling seacoasts, or our Army and Navy that makes America great - but rather our reliance in the law of liberty and the religious law God has planted in us.

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.

If we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class.

There has never been but one question in all civilization-how to keep a few men from saying to many men: You work and earn bread and we will eat it.

If my father's son can become President of these United States, then your father's son can become anything he wishes.

The hen is the wisest of all the animal creation, because she never cackles until the egg is laid.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

Resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer

When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away. it's best to let him run.

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.

The most altruistic man is the most selfish.

Nothing in this world is impossible to a willing heart.

It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river.

They [the signers of the Declaration of Independence] did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right; so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.

While the people retain their virtue, and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government, in the short space of four years.

Upon the subject of education ... I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in.

In your temporary failure there is no evidence that you may not yet be a better scholar, and a more successful man in the great struggle of life, than many others, who have entered college more easily.

Teach the children so it won't be necessary to teach the adults.

If we magnified our successes as much as we magnify our disappointments, we'd all be much happier

You can lose everything in life,but not dreams.