Quotes from Abraham Lincoln

I shall adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have an irrepressible desire to live till I can be assured that the world is a little better for my having lived in it.

I am for those means which will give the greatest good to the greatest number.

A long visit to a friend is often a great bore. Never make people twice glad.

Achievement has no COLOR.

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.

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.

The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.

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.

I never went to school more than six months in my life, but I can say this: that among my earliest recollections, I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand.

Don't swap horses in crossing a stream.

It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power.

The surest way to reveal one's character is not through adversity but by giving them power.

I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.

I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side.

What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.

I am much indebted to the good Christian people of the country for their constant prayers and consolations; and to no one of them, more than to yourself.

What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.[Lincoln's maxim and philosophy]

I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for the day.

Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.

Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.

Violence begins where knowledge ends.

I have talked with great men, and I do not see how they differ from others.