Abraham Lincoln Quotes

It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.

Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.

Whatever you are, be a good one.

If you want to find out what a man is to the bottom, give him power. Any man can stand adversity — only a great man can stand prosperity. It is the glory of Abraham Lincoln that he never abused power only on the side of mercy

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.

My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.

I'm a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down.

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

When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.

Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.

Though [Abraham Lincoln] never would travel to Europe, he went with Shakespeare’s kings to Merry England; he went with Lord Byron poetry to Spain and Portugal. Literature allowed him to transcend his surroundings.

I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how a man could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.

Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it.

I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

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

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.

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.

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.

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

The best way to predict your future is to create it.

No man is poor who has a Godly mother.

I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all.

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

Tact: the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

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.

You can fool some people some times but you cant fool all the people all the time

I will prepare and some day my chance will come.

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh -- anything but work.

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

All I have learned, I learned from books.

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

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

Every man's happiness is his own responsibility.

I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.

They have a Right to censure, that have a Heart to help: The rest is Cruelty, not Justice. (Frequently misquoted as "He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.")

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

It's not me who can't keep a secret. It's the people I tell that can't.

The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he made so many of them.

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

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.

If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. -Speech at Clinton, Illinois, September 8, 1854.

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer.

It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.

I am not concerned that you have fallen -- I am concerned that you arise.

To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own.

The better part of one's life consists of his friendships.

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.

Achievement has no color

When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.

Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is wrong.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Judge us not equally, Abraham. We may all deserve hell, but some of us deserve it sooner than others

I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.

No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.

No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Here’s a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages 1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. 2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5. 3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on “Bright Eyes.” 4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank. 5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13. 6) Nadia Comăneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14. 7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15. 8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil. 9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19. 10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961. 11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936. 12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23 13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24 14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record 15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity 16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France 17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures “David” and “Pieta” by age 28 18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world 19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter 20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean 21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind 22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest 23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech “I Have a Dream." 24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics 25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight 26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions. 27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon. 28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" 29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas 30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger 31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States 32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out. 33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games" 34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out. 35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa. 36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president. 37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels. 38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat". 40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived 41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise 42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out 43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US 44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats 45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.

A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.

That there are such devices as firearms, as easy to operate as cigarette lighters and as cheap as toasters, capable at anybody's whim of killing Father or Fats or Abraham Lincoln or John Lennon or Martin Luther King, Jr., or a woman pushing a baby carriage, should be proof enough for anybody that being alive is a crock of shit.

If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it.

I have come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason, I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

You can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.

Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.

Don’t criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.

Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.

Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country's cause. Honor, also, to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field and serves, as he best can, the same cause.

Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

If this country is ever demoralized, it will come from trying to live without work.

Stand with anyone that is right; stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence

In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once.

As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, "And this too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

So what else can I tell you?" I asked. "I mean, to get you to reveal Lily to me." She triangled her fingers under her chin. "Let's see. Are you a bed wetter?" "Am I a...?" "Bed wetter. I am asking if you are a bed wetter." I knew she was trying to get me to blink. But I wouldn't. "No, ma'am. I leave my beds dry." "Not even a little drip every now and then?" "I'm trying hard to see how this is germane." "I'm gauging your honesty. What is the last periodical you read methodically?" "Vogue. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, that's mostly because I was in my mother's bathroom, enduring a rather long bowel movement. You know, the kind that requires Lamaze." "What adjective do you feel the most longing for?" That was easy. "I will admit I have a soft spot for fanciful." "Let's say I have a hundred million dollars and offer it to you. The only condition is that if you take it, a man in China will fall off his bicycle and die. What do you do?" "I don't understand why it matters whether he's in China or not. And of course I wouldn't take the money." The old woman nodded. "Do you think Abraham Lincoln was a homosexual?" "All I can say for sure is that he never made a pass at me." "Are you a museumgoer?" "Is the pope a churchgoer?" "When you see a flower painted by Georgia O'Keefe, what comes to mind?" "That's just a transparent ploy to get me to say the word vagina, isn't it? There. I said it. Vagina.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be 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 — 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 government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.