Abraham Lincoln was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865.
Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War and succeeded in preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, bolstering the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.
Here is a collection of Abraham Lincoln most inspiring quotes: Abraham Lincoln quotes about success, leadership, education and the future. Quotes and sayings on life, hope, love and freedom by Abraham Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln Quotes and Sayings
Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.
I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.
I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.
Tact: the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.
Achievement has no color.
You can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.
Stand with anyone that is right; stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from The Savior of the world is communicated to us through this Book.
Nothing will divert me from my purpose.
A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.
Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
The most reliable way to predict the future is to create it.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest.
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
If we exchange one dollar, we both have one dollar each. But if we exchange one good thought, we both have two good thoughts.
Whatever you are, be a good one.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
You must remember that some things legally right are not morally right.
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry.
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.
The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God cannot retain it.
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.
We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.
A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.
People who have no vices, have very few virtues.
Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.
I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.
Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is wrong.
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence.
Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality.
Writing, the art of communicating thoughts to the mind through the eye, is the great invention of the world... enabling us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn, at all distances of time and space.
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.
A nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure.
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how a man could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.
All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
Every man's happiness is his own responsibility.
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, and beer.
I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end you are sure to succeed.
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.
A tendancy to melancholy... let it be observed, is a misfortune, not a fault.
Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.
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 and 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 all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
Kindness is the only service that will stand the storm of life and not wash out.
My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.
Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it.
Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.
The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.
It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.
No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.
Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.
A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones.
You cannot have the right to do what is wrong!
And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
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 don't like that man. I must get to know him better.
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
I am not concerned that you have fallen, I am concerned that you arise.
The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.
Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country's cause. Honor, also, to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field and serves, as he best can, the same cause.
Determine that the thing can and shall be done and then... find the way.
That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
Life is hard but so very beautiful.
In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God cannot be for, and against the same thing at the same 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.
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
The best way to predict your future is to create it.
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 rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh - anything but work.
It's not me who can't keep a secret. It's the people I tell that can't.
The better part of one's life consists of his friendships.
We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.
Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
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.
In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.
The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation is the philosophy of government in the next.
Tis better people think you a fool, then open your mouth and erase all doubt.
Nations do not die from invasion; they die from internal rottenness.
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.
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.
No man is poor who has a Godly mother.
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he made so many of them.
To ease another's heartache is to forget one's own.
If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it.
Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.
My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.
Force is all conquering, but it's victories are short lived.
It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.
I am nothing, truth is everything.
You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry.
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
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 chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of 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 of the time.
You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.
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.
I have come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason, I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me.
Don't criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.
Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.
If friendship is your weakest point then you are the strongest person in the world.
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 me - and I think He has - I believe I am ready.
Women are the only people I am afraid of who I never thought would hurt me.
If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.
A day spent helping no one but yourself is a day wasted.
Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all.
All I have learned, I learned from books.
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
If this country is ever demoralized, it will come from trying to live without work.
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. As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
You can't make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak.
Don't worry when you are not recognized but strive to be worthy of recognition.
Never do anything for anyone who can just as well do it themself.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
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