Abraham Lincoln was the top US president in history. He saved our country with his cunning battle strategies and speeches for unity. Lincoln had great life stories to tell, quotes about different events and experiences, connections he made, and commentary about the war with specific soldiers. As most Americans haven’t read enough of Abraham Lincoln’s amazing words or experienced all that he had in life, this article has compiled a shortlist of some of the greatest Abraham Lincoln quotes.
Abraham Lincoln Famous Quotes
You are reading: Top 100+ Best Inspirational Abraham Lincoln Quotes And Sayings [2022]
“Passion has helped us, but can do so no more. It will in the future be our enemy. The reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Love is the chain to lock a child to its parent.” — 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.” — Abraham Lincoln
“In very truth he was, the noblest work of God—an honest man.” — Abraham Lincoln
“There are no bad pictures; that’s just how your face looks sometimes.” — Abraham Lincoln
“You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.” — Abraham Lincoln
“For people who like that kind of a book that is the kind of book they will like.” — Abraham Lincoln
“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
“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.”
“I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” — Abraham Lincoln
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” — Abraham Lincoln
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life.” — Abraham Lincoln
“And in the end, it is not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.” — Abraham Lincoln
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Every man’s happiness is his own responsibility.” — Abraham Lincoln
“If I am killed, I can die but once; but to live in constant dread of it, is to die over and over again.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I would rather be a little nobody than to be an evil somebody.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I have been driven many times upon 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 that day.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other thing.” — 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 down.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I have a congenital aversion to failure.” — Abraham Lincoln
34.“I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.” — 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 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
“And having thus chosen our course, without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear, and with manly hearts.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good.” — Abraham Lincoln
“What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I know not how to aid you, save in the assurance of one of mature age, and much severe experience, that you can not fail, if you resolutely determine, that you will not.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded, in this connection, of a story of an old Dutch farmer who remarked to a companion once that ‘it was not best to swap horses while crossing streams’.” — Abraham Lincoln
“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.”
“The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity.” — Abraham Lincoln
“This is a world of compensations, 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, can not long retain it.” — Abraham Lincoln
“You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The one victory we can ever call complete will be that one which proclaims that there is not one slave or one drunkard on the face of God’s green earth.” — Abraham Lincoln
“All I ask for the negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy.” — Abraham Lincoln
“No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle–the sheet anchor of American republicanism.” — Abraham Lincoln
“It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not that we are not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties. And not to Democrats alone do I make this appeal, but to all who love these great and true principles.”— Abraham Lincoln
“Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, the man was made for immortality.” — Abraham Lincoln
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” — Abraham Lincoln
“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war. I will close by saying, God bless the women of America!” — Abraham Lincoln
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“It is easy to see that, under the sharp discipline of civil war, the nation is beginning a new life.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” — Abraham Lincoln
“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.” — Abraham Lincoln
“That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.” — Abraham Lincoln
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and defend it’.” — Abraham Lincoln
“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, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The better part of one’s life consists in his friendships.” — Abraham Lincoln
“One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves.” — Abraham Linco
“In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book.” — Abraham Lincoln
“We are in civil war. In such cases there always is the main question; but in this case, that question is a perplexing compound — Union and Slavery. It thus becomes a question not of two sides merely, but of at least four sides, even among those who are for the Union, saying nothing of those who are against it.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The will of God prevails. 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. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party – and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.” — Abraham Lincoln
“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.” — Abraham Lincoln
“What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?” — Abraham Lincoln
“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.” — Abraham Lincoln
“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Labor is prior to and independent of, the 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
“Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I can make a General in five minutes but a good horse is hard to replace.” — 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 rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh—anything but work.” — Abraham Lincoln
“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, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone 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
“If we have no friends, we have no pleasure; and if we have them, we are sure to lose them, and be doubly pained by the loss.”
“I distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of friends who would hold my hands while my enemies stab me.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I never encourage deceit, and falsehood, especially if you have got a bad memory, is the worst enemy a fellow can have. The fact is the truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstances are.” — 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 down.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Whatever you are, be a good one.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I desire to so 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 of me.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The ballot is stronger than the bullet.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Sir, 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
“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.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I will prepare and some day my chance will come.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I do the very best I know how–the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.” — Abraham Lincoln
“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable – a most sacred right – a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The love of property and consciousness of right and wrong have conflicting places in our organization, which often makes a man’s course seem crooked, his conduct a riddle.” — Abraham Lincoln
“If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Towering genius distains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.” — Abraham Lincoln
“There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The United States government must not undertake to run the Churches. When an individual, in the Church or out of it, becomes dangerous to the public interest he must be checked.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon and come to stay, and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time.” — Abraham Lincoln
“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
“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.” — Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln Quotes On Education
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“I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered, or my term expires, or Congress or the country forsakes me… 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.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The old general rule was that educated people did not perform manual labor. They managed to eat their bread, leaving the toil of producing it to the uneducated. This was not an insupportable evil to the working bees, so long as the class of drones remained very small. But now, especially in these free States, nearly all are educated–quite too nearly all, to leave the labor of the uneducated, in any wise adequate to the support of the whole. It follows from this that henceforth educated people must labor. Otherwise, education itself would become a positive and intolerable evil. No country can sustain, in idleness, more than a small percentage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at something productive.” — Abraham Lincoln
“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 can be engaged in.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Mr. Clay’s lack of a more perfect early education, however it may be regretted generally, teaches at least one profitable lesson; it teaches that in this country, one can scarcely be so poor, but that if he will, he can acquire sufficient education to get through the world respectably.” — Abraham Lincoln
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Abraham Lincoln Quotes On Democracy
“Welcome, or unwelcome, agreeable, or disagreeable, whether this shall be an entire slave nation, is the issue before us.” — Abraham Lincoln
“It is not merely for today, but for all time to come that we should perpetuate for our children’s children this great and free government, which we have enjoyed all our lives. –August 22, 1864 Speech to the One Hundred Sixty-sixth Ohio Regiment” — Abraham Lincoln
“The restoration of the Rebel States to the Union must rest upon the principle of civil and political equality of both races, and it must be sealed by a general amnesty.” — 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 think we have fairly entered upon a durable struggle as to whether this nation is to ultimately become all slave or all free, and though I fall early in the contest, it is nothing if I shall have contributed, in the least degree, to the final rightful result.” — Abraham Lincoln
“While we must, by all available means, prevent the overthrow of the government, we should avoid planting and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of society.” — Abraham Lincoln
“In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in this contest than is realized by everyone.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Nowhere in the world is presented a government of so much liberty and equality. To the humblest and poorest amongst us are held out the highest privileges and positions. The present moment finds me at the White House, yet there is as good a chance for your children as there was for my father’s.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Thoughtful men must feel that the fate of civilization upon this continent is involved in the issue of our contest.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them.” — Abraham Lincoln
“…I do not mean to say that this government is charged with the duty of redressing or preventing all the wrongs in the world, but I do think that it is charged with the duty of preventing and redressing all wrongs which are wrongs to itself.” — Abraham Lincoln
“This is essentially a People’s contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men — to lift artificial weights from all shoulders — to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all — to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.” — Abraham Lincoln
“May our children and our children’s children to a thousand generations, continue to enjoy the benefits conferred upon us by a united country and have caused yet to rejoice under those glorious institutions bequeathed us by Washington and his compeers.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Of our political revolution of ’76, we all are justly proud. It has given us a degree of political freedom, far exceeding that of any other nation of the earth. In it, the world has found a solution to the long-mooted problem, as to the capability of man to govern himself. In it was the germ which has vegetated, and still is to grow and expand into the universal liberty of mankind.” — 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 themselves — in their separate, and individual capacities.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much.” — Abraham Lincoln
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Abraham Lincoln Quotes About Freedom
“I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.” — Abraham Lincoln
“On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we have been. When we were the political slaves of King George and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that ‘all men are created equal’ a self-evident truth; but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim ‘a self-evident lie.’” — Abraham Lincoln
“I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Four score 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
“I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.” — Abraham Lincoln
“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” — Abraham Lincoln
“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.” — Abraham Lincoln
“This is a world of compensations, 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, can not long retain it.” — Abraham Lincoln
We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Every advocate of slavery naturally desires to see blasted, and crushed, the liberty promised the black man by the new constitution.” — Abraham Lincoln
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Abraham Lincoln Quotes On Emancipation
“What I did, I did after very full deliberation, and under a heavy and solemn sense of responsibility. I can only trust in God that I have made no mistake.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I am a little uneasy about the abolishment of slavery in this District, not but I would be glad to see it abolished, but as to the time and manner of doing it.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I have very earnestly urged the slave-states to adopt emancipation; and it ought to be, and is an object with me not to overthrow, or thwart what any of them may in good faith do, to that end.” — Abraham Lincoln
The emancipation proclamation applies to Arkansas. I think it is valid in law and will be so held by the courts. I think I shall not retract or repudiate it. Those who shall have tasted actual freedom I believe can never be slaves, or quasi slaves again.” — Abraham Lincoln
“You dislike the emancipation proclamation; and, perhaps, would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional — I think differently.” — Abraham Lincoln
“But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it can not be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life.” — Abraham Lincoln
“And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.” — Abraham Lincoln
“And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Still, to use a coarse, but an expressive figure, broken eggs can not be mended. I have issued the emancipation proclamation, and I can not retract it.” — Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln Quotes On Law
“In law, it is a good policy to never plead what you need not, lest you oblige yourself to prove what you can not.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief — resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this. Who can be more nearly a fiend than he who habitually overhauls the register of deeds in search of defects in titles, whereon to stir up strife, and put money in his pocket?” — Abraham Lincoln
“Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap – let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs; – let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.
“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser–in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker, the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.” — Abraham Lincoln
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