Quotes from Abraham Lincoln

Reputation is like fine china once broken it's very hard to repair.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right

Laws change; people die; the land remains.

A lawyer's time and advice are his stock in trade.

Most people are about as happy as they make up their mind to be.

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.

By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb.

There are few things wholly evil or wholly good. Almost everything, especially of government policy, is an inseparable compound of the two, so that our best judgement of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.

Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.

Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories.

I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.

I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded, in this connection, of a story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that "it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams."

When I do good, I feel good, when I do bad, I feel bad, and that's my religion.

I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and part of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; . . . And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time.

Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.

Can you inform me, gentlemen, where General Grant procures his whisky? . . . Because if I can find out, I'll send a barrel of it to every General in the field!

It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged.

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel.

If General McClellan did not want to use the army, he would like to borrow it.

It is a pleasure to be able to quote lines to fit any occasion.