Inspirational Quotations by Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

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.
—Abraham Lincoln

I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man’s rights.
—Abraham Lincoln

He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
—Abraham Lincoln

The better part of one’s life consists of his friendships.
—Abraham Lincoln

I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that the working men are the basis of all governments, for the plain reason that they are the more numerous, and as you added that those were the sentiments of the gentlemen present, representing not only the working class, but citizens of other callings than those of the mechanic, I am happy to concur with you in these sentiments, not only of the native born citizens, but also of the Germans and foreigners from other countries.
—Abraham Lincoln

I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to! I would to God that such a system prevailed all over the world.
—Abraham Lincoln

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
—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 will get wealthy. I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.
—Abraham Lincoln

It is said an eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him with the words, ‘And this, too, shall pass away.’ How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Resilience

It is better, then, to save the work while it is begun. You have done the labor; maintain itkeep it. If men choose to serve you, go with them; but as you have made up your organization upon principle, stand by it; for, as surely as God reigns over you, and has inspired your mind, and given you a sense of propriety, and continues to give you hope, so surely will you still cling to these ideas, and you will at last come back after your wanderings, merely to do your work over again.
—Abraham Lincoln

A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started … the fate of humanity is in his hands.
—Abraham Lincoln

You can’t escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Future, Responsibility

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.
—Abraham Lincoln

In times like the present men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and in eternity.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Responsibility

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.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Change, Vision

Singular indeed that the people should be writhing under oppression and injury, and yet not one among them to be found, to raise the voice of complaint.
—Abraham Lincoln

And in the end it’s not the years in your life that counts… It’s the life in your years.
—Abraham Lincoln

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
—Abraham Lincoln

If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.
—Abraham Lincoln

This is a world of compensation; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.
—Abraham Lincoln

In this and like communities public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed; consequently he who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes and decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.
—Abraham Lincoln

All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.
—Abraham Lincoln

In the early days of the world, the Almighty said to the first of our race In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread; and since then, if we except the light and the air of heaven, no good thing has been, or can be enjoyed by us, without having first cost labour. And inasmuch as most good things are produced by labour, it follows that all such things of right belong to those whose labour has produced them. But it has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have labored, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To secure to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.
—Abraham Lincoln

It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.
—Abraham Lincoln

Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of kingcraft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will whether it comes from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro.
—Abraham Lincoln

The President to-night has a dream:He was in a party of plain people, and, as it became known who he was, they began to comment on his appearance. One of them said:He is a very common-looking man. The President replied:The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason he makes so many of them.
—Abraham Lincoln

I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be an humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this, his almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great struggle.
—Abraham Lincoln

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Freedom

The Democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another mans right of property. Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.
—Abraham Lincoln

I could as easily bail out the Potomac River with a teaspoon as attend to all the details of the army.
—Abraham Lincoln

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.
—Abraham Lincoln

When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that’s my religion.
—Abraham Lincoln

Everybody likes a compliment.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Praise

I am superstitious. I have scarcely known a party, preceding an election, to call in help from the neighboring states, but they lost the state.
—Abraham Lincoln

The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselvesin their separate, and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere. The desirable things which the individuals of a people can not do, or can not well do, for themselves, fall into two classes: those which have relation to wrongs, and those which have not. Each of these branch off into an infinite variety of subdivisions. The firstthat in relation to wrongsembraces all crimes, misdemeanors, and nonperformance of contracts. The other embraces all which, in its nature, and without wrong, requires combined action, as public roads and highways, public schools, charities, pauperism, orphanage, estates of the deceased, and the machinery of government itself. From this it appears that if all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need for government.
—Abraham Lincoln

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 purposeand you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, I see no probability of the British invading us but he will say to you be silent; I see it, if you don’t. The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.
—Abraham Lincoln

It is an old and true maxim that a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall. So with men, if you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.
—Abraham Lincoln

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

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names liberty and tyranny.
—Abraham Lincoln

I have got you together to hear what I have written down. I do not wish your advice about the main matterfor that I have determined for myself.
—Abraham Lincoln

I’m a slow walker, but I never walk back.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Perseverance, Endurance, Integrity, Persistence, Resolve, Progress

Be sure your feet are in the right place. Then stand firm.
—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 to cry.
—Abraham Lincoln

No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty.
—Abraham Lincoln

If the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there, in this view, any assault upon the court, or the judges. It is a duty, from which they may not shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them; and it is no fault of theirs, if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.
—Abraham Lincoln

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.
—Abraham Lincoln

We hope all danger may be overcome; but to conclude that no danger may ever arise would itself be extremely dangerous.
—Abraham Lincoln

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.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Virtues, Reality, Character, Reputation

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.
—Abraham Lincoln

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
—Abraham Lincoln

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 fruit at length falls into his lap.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Life

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. 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. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
—Abraham Lincoln

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

Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Determination, Belief, Goals, Attitude

There’s no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Honor, Peace

Has it popular sovereignty not got down as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death?
—Abraham Lincoln

You have heard the story, havent you, about the man who was tarred and feathered and carried out of town on a rail? A man in the crowd asked him how he liked it. His reply was that if it was not for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk.
—Abraham Lincoln

As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by interest, and next no one left to borrow fromso must it be with a government.
—Abraham Lincoln

What has once happened, will invariably happen again, when the same circumstances which combined to produce it, shall again combine in the same way.
—Abraham Lincoln

Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Attitude, Happiness

To believe in the things you can see and touch is no belief at all; but to believe in the unseen is a triumph and a blessing.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Sin, Belief, Believe

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
—Abraham Lincoln

We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.
—Abraham Lincoln

Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.
—Abraham Lincoln

I think very much of the people, as an old friend said he thought of woman. He said when he lost his first wife, who had been a great help to him in his business, he thought he was ruined that he could never find another to fill her place. At length, however, he married another, who he found did quite as well as the first, and that his opinion now was that any woman would do well who was well done by. So I think of the whole people of this nation they will ever do well if well done by. We will try to do well by them in all parts of the country, North and South, with entire confidence that all will be well with all of us.
—Abraham Lincoln

This extraordinary war in which we are engaged falls heavily upon all classes of people, but the most heavily upon the soldier. For it has been said, all that a man hath will he give for his life; and while all contribute of their substance the soldier puts his life at stake, and often yields it up in his countrys cause. The highest merit, then, is due to the soldier.
—Abraham Lincoln

Good things come to those who wait, but they are left-overs from those who hustle.
—Abraham Lincoln

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it.
—Abraham Lincoln

Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity. Posterity has done nothing for us.
—Abraham Lincoln

The most notable feature of a disturbance in your city last summer, was the hanging of some working people by other working people. It should never be so. The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds.
—Abraham Lincoln

Honor to the Soldier, and Sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his countrys cause. Honor also to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field, and serves, as he best can, the same causehonor to him, only less than to him, who braves, for the common good, the storms of heaven and the storms of battle.
—Abraham Lincoln

Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Time

I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.
—Abraham Lincoln

I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Progress, Perseverance, Persistence

I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone.
—Abraham Lincoln

Next came the Patent laws. These began in England in 1624; and, in this country, with the adoption of our constitution. Before then these?, any man might instantly use what another had invented; so that the inventor had no special advantage from his own invention. The patent system changed this; secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things.
—Abraham Lincoln

My old father used to have a saying: If you make a bad bargain, hug it all the tighter.
—Abraham Lincoln

In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, he the president is the representative of the people. He is elected by them, as well as congress is. But can he, in the nature of things, know the wants of the people, as well as three hundred other men, coming from all the various localities of the nation? If so, where is the propriety of having a congress?
—Abraham Lincoln

As labor is the common burden of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burden onto the shoulders of others is the great durable curse of the race.
—Abraham Lincoln

I am struggling to maintain the government, not to overthrow it. I am struggling especially to prevent others from overthrowing it.
—Abraham Lincoln

Do not worry; eat three square meals a day; say your prayers; be courteous to your creditors; keep your digestion good; exercise; go slow and easy. Maybe there are other things your special case requires to make you happy, but my friend, these I reckon will give you a good lift.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Worry, Happiness

I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for the day.
—Abraham Lincoln

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.
—Abraham Lincoln

Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
—Abraham Lincoln

While the people retain their virtue, and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government, in the short space of four years.
—Abraham Lincoln

Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
—Abraham Lincoln

If people see the Capitol going on, it is a sign we intend the Union shall go on.
—Abraham Lincoln

Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Work

Your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Determination

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.
—Abraham Lincoln

Whatever you are, be a good one.
—Abraham Lincoln

A goal properly set is halfway reached.
—Abraham Lincoln

What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
—Abraham Lincoln

The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.
—Abraham Lincoln

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.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Thinking

It is much easier to ride a horse in the direction it’s going.
—Abraham Lincoln

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

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

Gentlemen, suppose all the property you were worth was in gold, and you had put it in the hands of Blondin to carry across the Niagara River on a rope, would you shake the cable, or keep shouting out to himBlondin, stand up a little straighterBlondin, stoop a little morego a little fasterlean a little more to the northlean a little more to the south? No, you would hold your breath as well as your tongue, and keep your hands off until he was safe over. The Government are carrying an immense weight. Untold treasures are in their hands. They are doing the very best they can. Don’t badger them. Keep silence, and well get you safe across.
—Abraham Lincoln

I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right.
—Abraham Lincoln

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
—Abraham Lincoln

Dear Madam, I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom. Yours, very sincerely and respectfully.
—Abraham Lincoln

With the catching ends the pleasures of the chase.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Success

The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.
—Abraham Lincoln

I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If he has a place and work for meand I think He hasI believe I am ready.
—Abraham Lincoln

To give the victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
—Abraham Lincoln

You may burn my body to ashes, and scatter them to the winds of heaven; you may drag my soul down to the regions of darkness and despair to be tormented forever; but you will never get me to support a measure which I believe to be wrong, although by doing so I may accomplish that which I believe to be right.
—Abraham Lincoln

Senator Stephen Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, postoffices, landoffices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands.
—Abraham Lincoln

I have very large ideas of the mineral wealth of our Nation. I believe it practically inexhaustible. It abounds all over the western country, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, and its development has scarcely commenced. Immigration, which even the war has not stopped, will land upon our shores hundred of thousands more per year from overcrowded Europe. I intend to point them to the gold and silver that waits for them in the West. Tell the miners from me, that I shall promote their interests to the utmost of my ability; because their prosperity is the prosperity of the Nation, and we shall prove in a very few years that we are indeed the treasury of the world.
—Abraham Lincoln

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves and under a just God cannot long retain it.
—Abraham Lincoln

I know that the LORD is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the LORDS side.
—Abraham Lincoln

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

Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?
—Abraham Lincoln

We cannot ask a man what he will do, and if we should, and he should answer us, we should despise him for it. Therefore we must take a man whose opinions are known.
—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 run.
—Abraham Lincoln

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