Quotes from 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.

Amid the greatest difficulties of my Administration, when I could not see any other resort, I would place my whole reliance in God, knowing that all would go well, and that He would decide for the right.

A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded cannot be safely disregarded.

Let [the Constitution] be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges, let it be written in primers, in spelling books and in almanacs, let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation.

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

Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.

That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

I have destroyed my enemies when I make friends with them

With the catching end the pleasures of the chase.

I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. --February 22, 1861

you can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors

The inclination to share thoughts with one another is probably an original impulse of our nature.If in pain I wish to let you know it,and ask your sympathy and assistance;and my pleasurable emotions also,I wish to communicate to,and share with you.

I could not sleep when I got on such a hunt for an idea until I had caught it; ...This was a kind of passion with me, and it has stuck by me; for I am never easy now, when I am handling a thought, till I have bounded it north, and bounded it south, and bounded it east, and bounded it west.

Bisa saja anda sering membohongi orang, bahkan sebagian orang selalu bisa anda bohongi, tetapi anda tidak bisa selalu membohongi semua orang.

If I do good, I feel good...If I do bad, I feel bad

Such will be a great lesson of peace: teaching men that what they cannot take by and election, neither can they take by war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.

How weak and fruitless must be any word of mine.

I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined.

I am slow to listen to criminations among friends, and never expose their quarrels on either side…allow bygones to be bygones, and look to the present & future only.

I would just as soon die now, but I haven't done anything yet to be remembered by

August] 17th. [1859] At Cincinnati. This is the first time in my life that I have appeared before an audience in so great a city as this. I therefore--though I am no longer a young man-- make this appearance under some degree of embarrassment. But I have found that when one is embarrassed, usually the shortest way to get through with it is to quit talking or thinking about it, and go at something else.

I will not say that we may not sooner or later be compelled to meet force by force; but the time has not yet come, and if we are true to ourselves, may never come. Do not mistake that the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Therefore let the legions of slavery use bullets; but let us wait patiently till November, and fire ballots at them in return; and by that peaceful policy, I believe we shall ultimately win.

Gentlemen, reading from speeches is a very tedious business, particularly for an old man that has to put on spectacles, and more so if the man be so tall that he has to bend over to the light.

if we never try, we shall never succeed.