Abraham Lincoln quote: "Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors."

I have always been an old-line Henry Clay Whig.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Being elected to Congress, though I am very grateful to our friends for having done it, has not plea...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families - second families, perhaps I shou...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The legal right of the Southern people to reclaim their fugitives I have constantly admitted. The le...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

By what principle of original right is it that one-fiftieth or one-ninetieth of a great nation, by c...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Nothing new here, except my marrying, which to me is a matter of profound wonder.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Illinois surpasses every other spot of equal extent upon the face of the globe in fertility of soil ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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

I can make more generals, but horses cost money.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy s...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, ca...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain'...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A private soldier has as much right to justice as a major-general.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Some day I shall be President.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

We can succeed only by concert. It is not, 'Can any of us imagine better,' but, 'Can we ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right; but it is my constant anxiety and prayer th...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Knavery and flattery are blood relations.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I never went to school more than six months in my life, but I can say this: that among my earliest r...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I learned a great many years ago that in a fight between husband and wife, a third party should neve...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only s...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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

When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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

I have talked with great men, and I do not see how they differ from others.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Don't swap horses in crossing a stream.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Gold is good in its place; but loving, brave, patriotic men are better than gold.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, f...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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 ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new territories, is not a matter of exclusive conce...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an i...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fo...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any abolitionist. I have been an Old Line Whig. I h...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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

How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I di...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be bec...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that any...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social a...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fai...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Property is the fruit of laborproperty is desirableis a positive good in the world. That some should...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Next came the Patent laws. These began in England in 1624; and, in this country, with the adoption o...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

My friends I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me great...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

You have heard the story, havent you, about the man who was tarred and feathered and carried out of ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, he the president is the representative of the people. H...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see th...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Senator Stephen Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who ha...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

We cannot ask a man what he will do, and if we should, and he should answer us, we should despise hi...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I have got you together to hear what I have written down. I do not wish your advice about the main m...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I could as easily bail out the Potomac River with a teaspoon as attend to all the details of the arm...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, ar...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The Democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know t...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

If the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocab...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that the working men are the basis of all governments, for the plain...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

In the early days of the world, the Almighty said to the first of our race In the sweat of thy face ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

It is better, then, to save the work while it is begun. You have done the labor; maintain itkeep it....
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The most notable feature of a disturbance in your city last summer, was the hanging of some working ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I have very large ideas of the mineral wealth of our Nation. I believe it practically inexhaustible....
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth in their mili...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

He said that he felt like the boy that stumped his toe,it hurt too bad to laugh, and he was too big ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by inte...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Dear Madam,I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advan...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Dont interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safegu...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

To give the victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently ha...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to! I wou...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of hi...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Singular indeed that the people should be writhing under oppression and injury, and yet not one amon...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

This extraordinary war in which we are engaged falls heavily upon all classes of people, but the mos...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Honor to the Soldier, and Sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his countrys cause. Honor also to the...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Whenever I hear any one, arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personal...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as th...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be reme...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

It is my ambition and desire to so administer the affairs of the government while I remain President...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goe...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

You may burn my body to ashes, and scatter them to the winds of heaven; you may drag my soul down to...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

If people see the Capitol going on, it is a sign we intend the Union shall go on.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

What has once happened, will invariably happen again, when the same circumstances which combined to ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I think very much of the people, as an old friend said he thought of woman. He said when he lost his...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Has it popular sovereignty not got down as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to m...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I am struggling to maintain the government, not to overthrow it. I am struggling especially to preve...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth was in gold, and you had put it in the hands of B...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I know that the LORD is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer th...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

When someone asked Abraham Lincoln, after he was elected president, what he was going to do about hi...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friendsthose whose hands ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

This is a world of compensation; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those w...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many y...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I am superstitious. I have scarcely known a party, preceding an election, to call in help from the n...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

To the best of my judgment, I have labored for, and not against, the Union. As I have not felt, so I...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

'A living dog is better than a dead lion.' Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion for this work, ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, sh...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I pass my life in preventing the storm from blowing down the tent, and I drive in the pegs as fast a...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Public sentiment is everything, with it nothing can fail, without it nothing can succeed.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The man who could go to Africa and rob her of her children, and then sell them into interminable bon...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all and thought to include all; but now, to aid i...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I have come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason, I can never be ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

In my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no nece...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A rose without thorns is like love without heartbreak; it doesn't make sense.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I ca...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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 t...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

When I'm getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I desire to so conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay dow...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I don't like that man. I'm going to have to get to know him better.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gal. So with men. If you would win a man to your...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

My father taught me to work, but he did not teach me to love it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my ax.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The old general rule was that educated people did not perform manual labor. They managed to e...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its people or too weak to maintain...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Freedom is the last, best hope of earth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, the Declaration of Independence.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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 ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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

I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree i...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Everybody likes a compliment.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Must a government be too strong for the liberties of its people or too weak to maintain its own exis...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to
succeed, but I am bound to...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire a...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I'm a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is w...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelit...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Women are the only people I am afraid of who I never thought would hurt me
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safe...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

All I have learned, I learned from books.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

No man is poor who has a Godly mother.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us
from the support of a ca...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Achievement has no color
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Tell me what brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other gen...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The br...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I cannot imaging anyone looking at the sky and denying God.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build o...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

We must ask where we are and whither we are tending.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

If you wish to win a man over to your ideas, first make him your friend.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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

I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remem...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A jury too often has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The Lord prefers common looking people. That is why he made so many of them.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Every person is responsible for his own looks after 40.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The President to-night has a dream: He was in a party of plain people, and, as it became known who h...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advan...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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

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

If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and e...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I fear explanations explanatory of things explained.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I ever met.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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

He reminds me of the man who murdered both his parents, and then when the sentence was about to be p...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legi...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

Copied!

Abraham Lincoln

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

Abraham Lincoln

Share:

Related

More Abraham Lincoln