Quotes & Sayings

Top 100 Abraham Lincoln Quotes

Published

6 years ago

November 3, 2018

Moriah Joy Chace

Here is a list of Top 100 Abraham Lincoln quotes.

Abraham Lincoln Quotes

“Do good to those who hate you and turn their ill will to friendship.”

“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”

“Any nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure.”

“We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.”

“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”

“Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.”

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

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

“I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”

“Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it.”

“Every man’s happiness is his own responsibility.”

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

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

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

“That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.”

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”

“Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.”

“All I have learned, I learned from books.”

“I would rather be a little nobody, then to be an evil somebody.”

“I will prepare and some day my chance will come.”

“You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry.”

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

“Everybody likes a compliment.”

“The better part of one’s life consists of his friendships.”

“I cannot bring myself to believe that any human being lives who would do me any harm.”

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

“The ballot is stronger than the bullet.”

“Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.”

“No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.”

“My best friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.”

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

“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”

“I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all.”

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

“If I am killed, I can die but once; but to live in constant dread of it, is to die over and over again.”

“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”

“I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”

“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.”

“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.”

“Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.”

“I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”

“Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.”

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

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”

“We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.”

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

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

“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.”

“A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.”

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

“I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.”

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

“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.”

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

“No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.”

“A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.”

“No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.”

“If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”

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

“You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.”

“Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did.”

“It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river.”

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

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

“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.”

“The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.”

“I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.”

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

“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new at all.”

“I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life.”

“Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.”

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

“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.”

“Perhaps a man’s character was like a tree, and his reputation like its shadow; the shadow is what we think of it, the tree is the real thing.”

“If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end…”

“How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”

“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.”

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.”

“The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.”

“Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”

“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.”

“The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.”

“I have stepped out upon this platform that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement I have the best of the bargain.”

“If you think you can slander a woman into loving you, or a man into voting for you, try it till you are satisfied.”

“The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I’m a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.”

“Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.”

“I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.”

“If all do not join now to save the good old ship of the Union this voyage nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage.”

“Stand with anybody that stands RIGHT. Stand with him while he is right and PART with him when he goes wrong.”

“The legitimate object of government is ‘to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, 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.”

“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.”

“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 up to what light I have.”

“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.”

“When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.”

Further Reading