Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
— Abraham Lincoln
You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.
When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion.
I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.
When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any abolitionist. I have been an Old Line Whig. I have always hated it, but I have always been quiet about it until this new era of the introduction of the Nebraska Bill began.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
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.
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.
Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.
No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
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.
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.
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.
The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.
The man who could go to Africa and rob her of her children, and then sell them into interminable bondage, with no other motive than that which is furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the most depraved murderer that he can never receive pardon at my hand.
That I am not a member of any Christian church is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures, and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular.
When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.
A man watches his pear tree day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe pear at length falls into his lap.
Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.
Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.
I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end... I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.
I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.
Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
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.
In so far as the government lands can be disposed of, I am in favor of cutting up the wild lands into parcels so that every poor man may have a home.
Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.
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.
I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think and feel.
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.
I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.
For my part, I desire to see the time when education - and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and industry - shall become much more general than at present, and should be gratified to have it in my power to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might have a tendency to accelerate the happy period.
I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.
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.
