Abraham Lincoln Quotes

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

"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 which catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the highroad to his reason.
Abraham Lincoln

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Abraham Lincoln

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

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
Abraham Lincoln

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

I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
Abraham Lincoln

If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg.
Abraham Lincoln

If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.
Abraham Lincoln

I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
Abraham Lincoln

I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.
Abraham Lincoln

I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day.
Abraham Lincoln

Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.
Abraham Lincoln

It is the eternal struggle between these two principles - right and wrong. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time and will ever continue to struggle. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it."
Abraham Lincoln

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

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

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

The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.
Abraham Lincoln

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
Abraham Lincoln

The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.
Abraham Lincoln

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

To ease another's heartache is to forget one's own.
Abraham Lincoln

To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
Abraham Lincoln

Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
Abraham Lincoln

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.
Abraham Lincoln

What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
Abraham Lincoln

When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
Abraham Lincoln

When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
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.
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

You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
Abraham Lincoln

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

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
Abraham Lincoln

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.
Abraham Lincoln