Quotes from Robert E. Lee

Shake off those gloomy feelings. Drive them away. Fix your mind and pleasures upon what is before you.All is bright if you will think it so. All is happy if you will make it so. Do not dream. It is too ideal, too imaginary. Dreaming by day, I mean. Live in the world you inhabit. Look upon things as they are. Take them as you find them. Make the best of them. Turn them to your advantage.

We poor sinners need to come back from our wanderings to seek pardon through the all-sufficient merits of our Redeemer. And we need to pray earnestly for the power of the Holy Spirit to give us a precious revival in our hearts and among the unconverted.

Cadets can neither be treated as schoolboys or soldiers.

I can not trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.

It is well that war is so terrible, or we would grow too fond of it.

The education of a man ( or woman ) is never completed until he dies.

I am A man, not a sponge! If god wished a sponge to think, A SPONGE WOULD THINK!

It is good that war is so terrible, or we should become too fond of it.

I like whiskey. I always did, and that is why I never drink it.

My heart bleeds at the death of every one of our gallant men.

Do your duty in all things, like the old Puritan. You cannot do more; you should never wish to do less.

Get correct views of life, and learn to see the world in its true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and, when summoned away, to leave without regret.

What a cruel thing war is... to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors.

To be a good soldier, you must love the army. To be a good commander, you must be willing to order the death of the thing you love.

The time is not come for impartial history. If the truth were told just now, it would not be credited.

If a friend asks a favor, you should grant it if it is reasonable; if not, tell him plainly why you cannot: You will wrong him and wrong yourself by equivocation of any kind.

Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one; the man who requires you to do so is dearly purchased at a sacrifice.

While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is onward, & we give it the aid of our prayers & all justifiable means in our power, we must leave the progress as well as the result in his hands who sees the end; who chooses to work by slow influences; & with whom two thousand years are but as a single day.

We have fought this fight as long, and as well as we know how. We have been defeated. For us, as a Christian people, there is now but one course to pursue. We must accept the situation.

The devil's name is Dullness.

Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South, I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native State?

Remember, we are all one country now. Dismiss from your mind all sectional feeling, and bring them up to be Americans.

I believe it to be the duty of everyone to unite in the restoration of the country and the reestablishment of peace and harmony.

So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished.