Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) quotes

• A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.
• A house divided against itself cannot stand.
• Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.
• Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends with them?
• America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
• And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
• As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
• Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.
• Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
• Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
• Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.
• Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
• Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.
• God must love the common man, he made so many of them.
• Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
• I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
• I don't know who my grandfather was: I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
• I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.
• I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.
• I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.
• If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
• If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.
• Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.
• It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
• Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.
• My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with that failure.
• Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
• No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
• No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
• Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
• Sir, my concern is not whether God is our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.
• Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
• Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
• Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
• To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards out of men.
• We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.
• Whatever you are, be a good one.
• When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
• Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
• You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
• You cannot escape the responsibility of tommorow by evading it today.
• You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.