Quotes from Abraham Lincoln

Care for him who shall have borne the battle

My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not to either save or destroy Slavery.

Military glory-that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood-that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy.

There is really no crisis except an artificial one...If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the trouble will come to an end.

So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call out the war power of the Government; and so to resist force, employed for its destruction, by force, for its preservation.

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.

It is rather for us here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.

I have stepped out upon this platform that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement I have the best of the bargain.

I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any Abolitionist.

Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty

We know nothing of what will happen in future, but by the analogy of experience.

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.

Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be, as the egg is to the fowl; we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.

I can make more generals, but horses cost money.

Do not worry; eat three square meals a day; say your prayers; be courteous to your creditors; keep your digestion good; exercise; go slow and easy. Maybe there are other things your special case requires to make you happy, but my friend, these I reckon will give you a good life.

I have found that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition.

Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.

You can have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government; while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend" it.

This struggle and scramble for office, for a way to live without work, will finally test the strength of our institutions.

Public opinion, though often formed upon a wrong basis, yet generally has a strong underlying sense of justice.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves.

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 government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.