Abraham 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.

To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.

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.

If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.

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.

I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.

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

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

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.

I will prepare and some day my chance will come.

Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.

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

A mighty pain to love it is, And 't is a pain that pain to miss; But of all pains, the greatest pain It is to love, but love in vain.

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.

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

Wasn't that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted

Every noon as the clock hands arrive at twelve, I want to tie the two arms together, And walk out of the bank carrying time in bags.

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.

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

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

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.

It isn't normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.

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.

Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.

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

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

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

You live it forward, but understand it backward.

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

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!

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.

The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.

Achievement has no color

The thing about smart mother fuckers is that sometimes, they sound like crazy mother fuckers to stupid mother fuckers...

Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.

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.

One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be

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.

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.

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.

If you knew your potential to feel good, you would ask no one to be different so that you can feel good. You would free yourself of all of that cumbersome impossibility of needing to control the world, or control your mate, or control your child. You are the only one who creates your reality. For no one else can think for you, no one else can do it. It is only you, every bit of it you.

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 customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion--its message becomes meaningless.

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.