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Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865.

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He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.

– Abraham Lincoln

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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.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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I am for those means which will give the greatest good to the greatest number.

– Abraham Lincoln

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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.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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Let me not be understood as saying that there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously observed.

– Abraham Lincoln

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No man resolved to make the most of himself has time to waste on personal contention.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.

– Abraham Lincoln

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We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory shall swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of nature.

– Abraham Lincoln

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With the catching end the pleasures of the chase.

– Abraham Lincoln

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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.

– Abraham Lincoln

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Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...We here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside me.

– Abraham Lincoln

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Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

– Abraham Lincoln

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My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.

– Abraham Lincoln

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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

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I will prepare and some day my chance will come.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

– Abraham Lincoln

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If you look for the bad in people, you will surely find it.

– Abraham Lincoln

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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

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When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that is my religion.

– Abraham Lincoln

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All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh - anything but work.

– Abraham Lincoln

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People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. 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. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one.

– Abraham Lincoln

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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

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time.

– Abraham Lincoln

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No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in. That everyone may receive at least a moderate education appears to be an objective of vital importance.

– Abraham Lincoln

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He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.

– Abraham Lincoln

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That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

– Abraham Lincoln

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What is conservativism? Is it not the aherence to the old and tried against the new and untried?

– Abraham Lincoln

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Corporations have been enthroned .... An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people... until wealth is aggregated in a few hands ... and the Republic is destroyed.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class. There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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I do the very best I know howthe very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me wont amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

– Abraham Lincoln

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If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. You may fool all of the people some of the time you can even fool some of the people all the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

– Abraham Lincoln

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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.

– Abraham Lincoln

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The worst thing you can do for those you love is the things they could and should do themselves.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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Whatever you are, be a good one.

– Abraham Lincoln

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Find out what whiskey he drinks and send all of my generals a case, if it will get the same results. - in reply to comments about General Grant's drinking problems

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

– Abraham Lincoln

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People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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...Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

– Abraham Lincoln

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Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.

– Abraham Lincoln

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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 the best life that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right and part from him when he goes wrong.

– Abraham Lincoln

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In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all... Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You cannot now realize that you will ever feel better... And yet this is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again.

– Abraham Lincoln

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Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention.

– Abraham Lincoln

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Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

– Abraham Lincoln

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The better part of one's life consists of his friendships.

– Abraham Lincoln

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All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.

– Abraham Lincoln

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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.

– Abraham Lincoln

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I am not concerned that you have fallen; I am concerned that you arise.

– Abraham Lincoln

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You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other.... The prayers of both could not be answered--that of neither has been answered fully.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.

– Abraham Lincoln

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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.

– Abraham Lincoln

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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.

– Abraham Lincoln

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Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

– Abraham Lincoln

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I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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I don't know who my grandfather was I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the Country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.

– Abraham Lincoln

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If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

– Abraham Lincoln

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If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words And this, too, shall pass away.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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Neither Heaven nor Hell. It is simply Purgatory.

– Abraham Lincoln

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Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy hypocrisy.

– Abraham Lincoln

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People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.

– Abraham Lincoln

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Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes.

– Abraham Lincoln

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Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.

– Abraham Lincoln

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Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail. Without it nothing can succeed. He who molds opinion is greater than he who enacts laws.

– Abraham Lincoln

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Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step over the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte 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. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

– Abraham Lincoln

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Sir, My concern is not weather God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.

– Abraham Lincoln

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The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

– Abraham Lincoln

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The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he makes so many of them.

– Abraham Lincoln

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The people are the masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who would pervert it!

– Abraham Lincoln

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This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can excercise their constitutional right of amending it, or excercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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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

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What kills the skunk is the publicity it gives itself.

– Abraham Lincoln

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When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees!

– Abraham Lincoln

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

– Abraham Lincoln

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You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time.

– Abraham Lincoln

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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.

– Abraham Lincoln

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Quotes from the news wire:

Read MoreHe's what it means to be a president -- not what we have now.

– Abraham Lincoln

Found on CNN 5 years ago

I’d probably walk around just like this on the Senate floor.

– Abraham Lincoln

Found on FOX News 6 years ago

If it ever reaches us.

– Abraham Lincoln

Found on FOX News 9 years ago

It's absolutely gorgeous, i don't get (the author's take) at all. This is very impressive.

– Abraham Lincoln

Found on FOX News 9 years ago

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