Abe Lincoln

The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.

Human action can be modified to some extent but human nature cannot be changed.

You can see what God thinks of money when you see the people he gives it to. 

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.

In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. 
 
 I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion. 

Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
 
Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.

When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.

When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.

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

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

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

Sir, 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.

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.

Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.

A house divided against itself cannot stand.
 
All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother.
 
All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of 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.  

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

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

As our case is new, we must think and act anew.

Avoid popularity if you would have peace.

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.

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

Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.

Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.

Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
 
Everybody likes a compliment.

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

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
 
He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas better than any man I ever met.
 
He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
 
He who molds the public sentiment... makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.
 
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
 
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.

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.

I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.
 
I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
 
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 don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
 
I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.

I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.

I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
 
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.
 
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.
 
In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong.
 
Knavery and flattery are blood relations.
 
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.
 
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.
  
Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.

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

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
 
Public opinion in this country is everything.
 
Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.

Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
 
That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
 
The assertion that all men are created equal was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
 
The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.

The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.
 
The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.
 
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

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.
 
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
 
The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.

There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, Truth is the daughter of Time.

These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.
 
These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.
 
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.

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.
 
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.
  
What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.

Whatever you are, be a good one.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
 
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
 
You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.