No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
Abraham Lincoln
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Abraham Lincoln
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
Abraham Lincoln
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
Abraham Lincoln
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.
Abraham Lincoln
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
Abraham Lincoln
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.
Abraham Lincoln
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
Abraham Lincoln
A man watches his pear tree day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe pear at length falls into his lap.
Abraham Lincoln
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Abraham Lincoln
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.
Abraham Lincoln
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
Abraham Lincoln
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
Abraham Lincoln
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new at all.
Abraham Lincoln
I can express all my views on the slavery question by quotations from Henry Clay.
Abraham Lincoln
The point – the power to hurt – of all figures lies in the truthfulness of their application.
Abraham Lincoln
I pass my life in preventing the storm from blowing down the tent, and I drive in the pegs as fast as they are pulled up.
Abraham Lincoln
I am like a man so busy in letting rooms in one end of his house, that he can’t stop to put out the fire that is burning the other.
Abraham Lincoln
He who molds the public sentiment… makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.
Abraham Lincoln
Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.
Abraham Lincoln
That our government should have been maintained in its original form from its establishment until now is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed and crumbled away. Through that period, it was felt by all to be an undecided experiment; now, it is understood to be a successful one.
Abraham Lincoln
When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying.
Abraham Lincoln
If a man had more than one life, I think a little hanging would not hurt this one; but after he is once dead, we cannot bring him back, no matter how sorry we may be; so the boy shall be pardoned.
Abraham Lincoln
We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.
Abraham Lincoln
It has so happened in all ages of the world that some have labored, and others have, without labor, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits.
Abraham Lincoln
Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
Abraham Lincoln
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.
Abraham Lincoln
With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
Abraham Lincoln
If I like a thing, it just sticks after once reading it or hearing it.
Abraham Lincoln
Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion,and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose – and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
Abraham Lincoln
Some day I shall be President.
Abraham Lincoln
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.
Abraham Lincoln
The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.
Abraham Lincoln
I can make more generals, but horses cost money.
Abraham Lincoln
It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws, but to break up both and make new ones.
Abraham Lincoln
Being elected to Congress, though I am very grateful to our friends for having done it, has not pleased me as much as I expected.
Abraham Lincoln
When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.
Abraham Lincoln
To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
Abraham Lincoln
Knavery and flattery are blood relations.
Abraham Lincoln
Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.
Abraham Lincoln
A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.
Abraham Lincoln
He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
Abraham Lincoln
We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.
Abraham Lincoln
I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.
Abraham Lincoln
He who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.
Abraham Lincoln
I care not much for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
Abraham Lincoln
I have great respect for the semicolon; it is a mighty handy little fellow.
Abraham Lincoln
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Abraham Lincoln
The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.
Abraham Lincoln
Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Abraham Lincoln
I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life.
Abraham Lincoln
I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.
Abraham Lincoln
A private soldier has as much right to justice as a major-general.
Abraham Lincoln
Never regret what you don’t write.
Abraham Lincoln
I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
Abraham Lincoln
We can succeed only by concert. It is not, ‘Can any of us imagine better,’ but, ‘Can we all do better?
Abraham Lincoln
A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.
Abraham Lincoln
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
Abraham Lincoln
Don’t swap horses in crossing a stream.
Abraham Lincoln
I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.
Abraham Lincoln
The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every calling, is diligence.
Abraham Lincoln
Gold is good in its place; but loving, brave, patriotic men are better than gold.
Abraham Lincoln
A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.
Abraham Lincoln