Quotes & Sayings About Lincoln

It rarely snows because Antarctica is a desert. An iceberg means it's tens of millions of years old and has calved from a glacier. (This is why you must love life: one day you're offering up your social security number to the Russia Mafia; two weeks later you're using the word calve as a verb.) I saw hundreds of them, cathedrals of ice, rubbed like salt licks; shipwrecks, polished from wear like marble steps at the Vatican; Lincoln Centers capsized and pockmarked; airplane hangars carved by Louise Nevelson; thirty-story buildings, impossibly arched like out of a world's fair; white, yes, but blue, too, every blue on the color wheel, deep like a navy blazer, incandescent like a neon sign, royal like a Frenchman's shirt, powder like Peter Rabbit's cloth coat, these icy monsters roaming the forbidding black. — Maria Semple

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

But let the past as nothing be. For the future my view is that the fight must go on. — Abraham Lincoln

I can only say that I have acted upon my best convictions, without selfishness or malice, and that by the help of God I shall continue to do so. — Abraham Lincoln

He was as tall as Lincoln and just as dead. — Joe Hill

[T]he man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression. — Abraham Lincoln

I therefore shared fully the intense chagrin of the New York and other State delegations when, on the third ballot, Abraham Lincoln received a larger vote than Seward. — Henry Villard

The loss of enemies does not compensate for the loss of friends. — Abraham Lincoln

I am not an accomplished lawyer. — Abraham Lincoln

I think my wife has always been aware, whatever country we have been in, of my dramatic leading man status; a little too dramatic she would probably say. — Andrew Lincoln

There is no greater injustice than to wring your profits from the sweat of another man's brow. — Abraham Lincoln

There are but two types of men who desire war: those who haven't the slightest intention of fighting it themselves, and those who haven't the slightest idea what it is. ... Any man who has seen the face of death knows better than to seek him out a second time. — Seth Grahame-Smith

The working men are the basis of all governments, for the plain reason that they are the most numerous ... — Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln Chafee, former governor of Rhode Island, announced he's running for president. Before he announced he's running, his wife went on Facebook and asked his staff if they remembered his password. Because if a Facebook password is too hard to remember, the launch codes for the nukes should be a piece of cake. — Jimmy Fallon

About the Story

Not all the details in this story are true. The times some events occurred have been changed, and the conversations are made up. Most of the things Tad Lincoln did in this story reportedly happened, including saving Jack the turkey and bombarding the Cabinet Room door with his toy cannon. Tad really was determined to raise money to help wounded soldiers and did persuade his father to pardon a woman's husband so he wouldn't be shot. Although Tad's antics often annoyed his father's staff, most agreed he had a big heart and a special way with animals. Once he even hitched goats to a chair and ran them through the White House, upsetting a gathering of dignified ladies. Nothing was too surprising when it came to Tad.
Although several presidents had declared occasional days of thanksgiving, none had ever officially made it a national holiday. Abraham Lincoln finally did so with his Proclamation of Thanksgiving on October 3, 1863. — Gary Hines

Lincoln was a master of small group theatrics. — Richard Brookhiser

To the new president, Abraham Lincoln: Sir, if on attaining the presidency you are as happy as I am upon leaving it, then, sir, you are a happy man indeed. — James Buchanan

Government, possessing the power to create and issue currency and credit as money and enjoying the right to withdraw both currency and credit from circulation by taxation and otherwise, need not and should not borrow capital at interest as a means of financing government work and public enterprises. — Abraham Lincoln

Killing the dog does not cure the bite. — Abraham Lincoln

Reputation is like fine china: Once broken it's very hard to repair. — Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln did not admire those who think it is a mark of sophistication to sneer at patriotism. He believed that God has a will for a country and that is honest man should rejoice in the effort to try to remake his country after the Divine pattern, insofar as that pattern is revealed to him. — Elton Trueblood

I can not but hate the prospect of slavery's expansion. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world-enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites-causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity. — Abraham Lincoln

Never change horses in midstream. — Abraham Lincoln

Whether it's making sure that families have access to quality health care and child care, or making sure that our children receive the best educational opportunities we can give them, we must remain committed to these needs because our children are our future. — Blanche Lincoln

It was the first time that he'd cried in a very long time. All of his emotions poured out now, in a great rush of release: it was sadness tinged with bitterness, but mostly an intensely deep feeling of loss. — EXO Books

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

I would like to speak in terms of praise due to the many brave officers and soldiers who have fought in the cause of the war. — Abraham Lincoln

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

We better know there is a fire whence we see much smoke rising than we could know it by one or two witnesses swearing to it. The witnesses may commit perjury, but the smoke cannot. — Abraham Lincoln

"Angelophany" is the visible or otherwise tangible manifestation of angels to human beings. Abraham Lincoln frequently mentioned that he was visited by angels at the White House ... — James R. Lewis

In your temporary failure there is no evidence that you may not yet be a better scholar, and a more successful man in the great struggle of life, than many others, who have entered college more easily. — Abraham Lincoln

I seem to have no problem revealing my crush on the man who murdered Lincoln. — Sarah Vowell

Lincoln grew immeasurably as he came to think of himself as an instrument of God's will. — Joe L. Wheeler

Of all the paradoxes of Lincoln's life, none is more powerful than the fact that the man who would come to be known throughout the world - from American schoolrooms to the tribal councils of the Caucasus Mountains - was deeply mysterious to the people who knew him best. "Those who have spoken most confidently of their knowledge of his personal qualities," wrote the Pennsylvania Republican Alexander McClure, "are, as a rule, those who saw least of them below the surface. — Joshua Wolf Shenk

I cannot imaging anyone looking at the sky and denying God. — Abraham Lincoln

Voters must have faith in the electoral process for our democracy to succeed. — Blanche Lincoln

What I want is to get done what the people desire to have done, and the question for me is how to find that out exactly. — Abraham Lincoln

Prosperity is the fruit of labor. It begins with saving money. — Abraham Lincoln

I have always been an old-line Henry Clay Whig. — Abraham Lincoln

Each opening bud, and care-perfected seed, Is as a page, where we may read of God. — Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps

One of the things that made me persist in the Antarctic in the face of sickening discouragements was my determination to name a portion of the earth's surface after my father. — Lincoln Ellsworth

I wish to see, in process of disappearing, that only thing which ever could bring this nation to civil war. — Abraham Lincoln

What did The Battle Hymn of the Republic and Uncle Tom's Cabin and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and all that have to do with our present enthusiasm for women's rights? Not that much, really. Women just got lucky this time. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

He (Abraham Lincoln) said he wanted to visit the Holy Land and see those places hallowed by the footprints of the Saviour. He was saying there was no city he so much desired to see as Jerusalem. And with the words half spoken on his tongue, the bullet of the assassin entered the brain, and the soul of the great and good President was carried by the angels to the New Jerusalem above. — Mary Todd Lincoln

Unfortunately, writing and reporting the truth is not allowed under Castro's tyrannical dictatorship. — Lincoln Diaz-Balart

I believe in monstrosities, and 'I Am Abraham' is a monstrosity of sorts, raveling out moment by moment with its contrapuntal songs, as if a band of musicians were at play, all of them with Lincoln's beard and disturbing grey eyes. — Jerome Charyn

One longs for the presence of a leader like Lincoln, who openly admitted his doubts and as openly preserved his commitment. — Rollo May

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

I have seen your dispatch expressing your unwillingness to break your hold where you are. Neither am I willing. Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke ... — Abraham Lincoln

Here is a bold embrace of internationalism. Let's join the rest of the world and go metric. — Lincoln Chafee

Few have attained to consummate wisdom in the perfection of philosophy: Solomon attained to it, and Aristotle in relation to his times, and in a later age Avicenna , and in our own days the recently deceased Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, and Adam Marsh. — Roger Bacon

I am rather inclined to silence. — Abraham Lincoln

My father would invite me sweetly to come and sit on a stool at his feet, and, as I let myself trustingly down, he would gently kick the seat from under me - and laugh. — Lincoln Steffens

Among the friends of Union, there is great diversity of sentiment and of policy in regard to slavery and the African race among us. — Abraham Lincoln

There are few things wholly evil or wholly good. Almost everything, especially of government policy, is an inseparable compound of the two, so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded. — Abraham Lincoln

In state after state, one portentous incident after another, breathlessly reported in newspapers throughout the country in the days following the election, alarmed even confident Republicans who had insisted that a Lincoln victory could never loosen the bonds that held the Union together. As early as November 9, pro-secession placards appeared on the streets of New Orleans, calling for the formation of a defense corps of Minutemen. Dissidents unfurled palmetto flags in Charleston, where artillery saluted their appearance by opening fire with a defiant fifteen-gun cannonade. — Harold Holzer

I never trusted a man who never smoked or drank. — Abraham Lincoln

Bare is back," says the Norse proverb, "without brother behind it;" and this is, by analogy, true of an elective magistracy. The hereditary ruler in any critical emergency may reckon on the inexhaustible resources of prestige, of sentiment, of superstition, of dependent interest, while the new man must slowly and painfully create all these out of the unwilling material around him, by superiority of character, by patient singleness of purpose, by sagacious presentiment of popular tendencies and instinctive sympathy with the national character. Mr. Lincoln's task was one of peculiar and exceptional difficulty. — James Russell Lowell

I think, with the gay liberation movement has had need for heroes and heroines, and it would be rather nice to have Abraham Lincoln as your poster boy, wouldn't it? — David Herbert Donald

Think of strangers as friends you not met yet. — Abraham Lincoln

It is their nature, beautiful and simple. That you would destroy such beings, Mr. Lincoln, such superior creatures, seems madness to me."
"That you speak of them with such reverence, Mr. Poe, seems madness to me."
"Can you imagine it? Can you imagine seeing the universe through such eyes? Laughing in the face of time and death - the world your Garden of Eden? Your library? Your harem? — Seth Grahame-Smith

If Lincoln's primary goal in the War was not the abolition of slavery but simply to preserve the Union, the question arises: Why did the Union need preserving? Or, more pointedly, why did the Southern states want to secede? — G. Edward Griffin

Here in my heart, my happiness, my house.
Here inside the lighted window is my love, my hope, my life.
Peace is my companion on the pathway winding to the threshold.
Inside this portal dwells new strength in the security, serenity, and radiance of those I love above life itself.
Here two will build new dreams
dreams that tomorrow will come true.
The world over, these are the thoughts at eventide when footsteps turn ever homeward.
In the haven of the hearthside is rest and peace and comfort. — Abraham Lincoln

My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them. — Abraham Lincoln

Through their deeds, the dead of battle have spoken more eloquently for themselves than any of the living ever could. But we can only honor them by rededicating ourselves to the cause for which they gave a last full measure of devotion. — Abraham Lincoln

I was a little cross.I ask pardon. If I do get up a little temper I have no sufficient time to keep it up. — 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 up to what light I have. — Abraham Lincoln

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

Cortissoz was art critic of the New York Herald Tribune. — Abraham Lincoln

After high school, I enrolled at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, but I stayed only a year and a half. I felt college was a waste of time; I wanted to start working. — Evan Williams

I am busily engaged in study of the Bible. — Abraham Lincoln

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. — Abraham Lincoln

Always, in Lincoln's mature theology, there is paradox. There is starting this, yet there is also tenderness; there is melancholy, yet there is also humor: there is moral law, yet there is also compassion. History is the scene of the working out God's justice, which we can never escape, but it is also the scene of the revelation of the everlasting mercy. — Elton Trueblood

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. — Abraham Lincoln

If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name. — Theodore Roosevelt

You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. — Abraham Lincoln

Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you want most. — Abraham Lincoln

You can complain because a rose has thorns, or you can rejoice
Because the thorns have a rose. — Abraham Lincoln

But having said all of that, that still doesn't account for a lot of the increase in popularity which stems, I think, from Lincoln's personal characteristics. — David Herbert Donald

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

This time we'll hate, alright - but we'll hate the ENEMY - the vicious gang of colored scum attackers and Jewish-Communist traitors - rather than one part of our own people hating another part for the benefit of the Jews and their army of SCUM! — George Lincoln Rockwell

When you are an actor every day kind of morphs into one as there is no set structure to my job. — Andrew Lincoln

The day will come - and it is not far off - when the legacy of Lincoln will finally be fulfilled at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, when a black man or woman will sit in the Oval Office. When that day comes, the most remarkable thing about it will be how naturally it occurs. — George H. W. Bush

You can't help the poor by being one of them. — 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 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

I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but holding it a sound maxim, that it is better to be only sometimes right, than at all times wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them. — Abraham Lincoln

I mean, if you have any idea of any kind of complexity or immensity or destiny, of general order, you're put in a position of nothingness. And I think this is true. I don't think I'm anything; I never have thought that. Whatever it is that activates it is a certain kind of energy that goes on. But the effect is ridiculous; it's absurd."
--Lincoln Kirstein in "The New Yorker — Lincoln Kirstein

The more sects we have the better. They are all getting somebody in (to the Church) that the others could not: and even with the numerous divisions we are all doing tolerably well. — Abraham Lincoln

Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States - old as well as new - North as well as South. — Abraham Lincoln

{When Abraham Lincoln was 26 years old in 1835, he wrote a defense of Thomas Paine's deism; a political associate, Samuel Hill, burned it to save Lincoln's political career. Historian Roy Basler, the editor of Lincoln's papers, said Paine had a strong influence on Lincoln's style:}

No other writer of the eighteenth century, with the exception of Jefferson, parallels more closely the temper or gist of Lincoln's later thought. In style, Paine above all others affords the variety of eloquence which, chastened and adapted to Lincoln's own mood, is revealed in Lincoln's formal writings. — Roy Basler

On Lincoln: A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship. — James Russell Lowell

I think that when you look at the great politicians, the two greatest in my view were George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, they certainly had character traits. You also know Abraham Lincoln overcame severe depression problems that he had when he was younger, which gave him the strength and the character later on. — John McCain

The fact that an African American sits in the White House at the helm of government in the United States of America on this 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation represents both phenomenal political symbolism and a victory of faith in democracy that should not be lost on any American. — Aberjhani

Who is this Fuck?" says Abraham Lincoln. "Why is he talking to this Fuck? That is not the name of anyone here. — Margaret Atwood

It is a pleasure to be able to quote lines to fit any occasion ... — Abraham Lincoln

I'm fonder of you than anybody on earth. I couldn't tell you that in New York. It'd mean I was a faggot. That was what the Civil War was about. Abraham Lincoln was a faggot. He was in love with General Grant. So was Jefferson Davis. Lincoln just freed the slaves on a bet. — Ernest Hemingway,

Up through and including Lincoln, American politicians nursed a fantasy of repatriating blacks to Africa. — Ned Sublette

Lincoln felt like he'd dunked his head into a sink full of Pop Rocks and turned on the water. — Rainbow Rowell

Wise statesmen ... established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity should look up again at the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began ... — Abraham Lincoln

I am not normally a betting person, but I say that putting your money on the American people is about as close to a sure bet as you are going to get. — Blanche Lincoln