Quotes by 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.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

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

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

I fear you do not fully comprehend the danger of abridging the liberties of the people. Nothing but the very sternest necessity can ever justify it. A government had better go to the very extreme of toleration, than to do aught that could be construed into an interference with, or to jeopardize in any degree, the common rights of its citizens.

What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.

Dont believe everything you read on the Internet.

He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.

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 Gods purpose is something different from the purpose of either party - and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaption to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true - that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By His mere great power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either *saved* or *destroyed* the Union without human contest. Yet the contest began, And, having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.

If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution; certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case.

The democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing when in conflict with another mans right of property...This is a world of compensations; and he 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.All honor to Jefferson - to the 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 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 re-appearing tyranny and oppression. Your obedient Servant,[Abraham Lincoln]April 6, 1859, in a letter to MA State Rep Henry L. PierceSpringfield, Ill.

I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.

I care not for a mans religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.

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.

There has never been but one question in all civilization-how to keep a few men from saying to many men: You work and earn bread and we will eat it.

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. &“These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people”– –

Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damages morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hung

You cannot have the right to do what is wrong!

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.