50 AMAZING QUOTES BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN

 

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.

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

2.          In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. 

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

4.          Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The Shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. 

5.          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. 

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

7.           Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be. 

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

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

10.      Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. 

11.      If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. 

12.      The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. 

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

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

15.       The secret to success is preparation. 

16.      Move and then move again. 

17.      Impossible is possible. 

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

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

20.      Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

21.       Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

22.      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

23.       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 by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong

24.      If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.

25.       My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.

26.      We know, Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired laborers amongst us. How little they know, whereof they speak! There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us ... Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope.

27.      Every man is proud of what he does well; and no man is proud of what he does not do well. With the former, his heart is in his work; and he will do twice as much of it with less fatigue. The latter performs a little imperfectly, looks at it in disgust, turns from it, and imagines himself exceedingly tired. The little he has done, comes to nothing, for want of finishing.

28.      By the "mud-sill" theory it is assumed that labor and education are incompatible; and any practical combination of them impossible. According to that theory, a blind horse upon a tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be -- all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly. According to that theory, the education of laborers, is not only useless, but pernicious, and dangerous. In fact, it is, in some sort, deemed a misfortune that laborers should have heads at all.

29.      Every blade of grass is a study; and to produce two, where there was but one, is both a profit and a pleasure.

30.      This leads to the further reflection, that no other human occupation opens so wide a field for the profitable and agreeable combination of labor with cultivated thought, as agriculture. I know of nothing so pleasant to the mind, as the discovery of anything which is at once new and valuable -- nothing which so lightens and sweetens toil, as the hopeful pursuit of such discovery. And how vast, and how varied a field is agriculture, for such discovery. The mind, already trained to thought, in the country school, or higher school, cannot fail to find there an exhaustless source of profitable enjoyment.

31.      I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.

32.      The point you press -- the importance of thorough organization -- is felt, and appreciated by our friends everywhere. And yet it involves so much more of the dry, and irksome labor that most of them shrink from it...

33.      The lady -- bearer of this -- says she has two sons who want to work. Set them at it, if possible. Wanting to work is so rare a merit, that it should be encouraged.

34.      He who does something at the head of one Regiment, will eclipse him who does nothing at the head of a hundred.

35.      And now, beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward, and give us victories.

36.      Let your military measures be strong enough to repel the invader and keep the peace, and not so strong as to unnecessarily harass and persecute the people.

37.      I was deeply mortified by the escape of Lee across the Potomac, because the substantial destruction of his army would have ended the war...

38.      Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
It is easy to see that, under the sharp discipline of civil war, the nation is beginning a new life.

39.      War at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.
The true rule for the Military is to seize such property as is needed for Military uses and reasons, and let the rest alone.

40.      Both party’s 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.... Fondly do we hope -- fervently do we pray -- that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.

41.      You say you will not fight to free Negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union.

42.      We are in civil war. In such cases there always is a main question; but in this case that question is a perplexing compound -- Union and Slavery. It thus becomes a question not of two sides merely, but of at least four sides, even among those who are for the Union, saying nothing of those who are against it.
Gen. Sheridan says "If the thing is pressed I think that Lee will surrender." Let the thing be pressed.

43.      All this talk about the dissolution of the Union is humbug -- nothing but folly. We WON'T dissolve the Union, and you SHAN'T.

44.      On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we have been. When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that "all men are created equal" a self-evident truth; but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim "a self-evident lie."

45.      I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.

46.      Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.

47.      In very truth he was, the noblest work of God -- an honest man.

48.      I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.

49.      Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief -- resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer.

50.      Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.

Reference
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/abraham_lincoln.html
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/quotes.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln