Quotes from Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln called laughter "the joyous, beautiful, universal evergreen of life."

Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention.

Everybody likes a compliment.

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.

If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts the country will be settled just as surely as all other difficulties of like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted.

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.

I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.

Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.

The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every calling, is diligence.

The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.

If you have never failed you have never lived.

Life is hard but so very beautiful

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?

I have simply tried to do what seemed best each day, as each day came.

Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.

Always remember: Life is for enjoying.

I go for all sharing the privileges of the government, who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.

Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new territories, is not a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territories. We want them for the homes of free white people.

I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.

I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where will you stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?