Abraham Lincoln’s Quotes reveal a more unified, unambiguous, and self-confident than most people. His quotes show that he believed strongly in individual genius. Hence, in the liberal creed of less government control.
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of America and lived between 1809 and 1865. He is known for uniting the states that constitute the USA through a civil war, for formally ending slavery, and for creating the possibility of future equal status of white Americans and African-Americans.
His quotes reveal his robust nationalism and his desire to remain within the union, often in the name of God’s desire. But he was also a strong believer in constitutionalism. It gelled with his ideas of individual liberties because his words reveal that he believed it was possible to devise a constitution ordained by God while ensuring Liberty for all.
If you study these Abraham Lincoln Quotes chronologically, you observe an evolution of his thoughts on African-Americans. Because of his commitment to freedom, he opposed slavery. He fought to give them equal constitutional rights within the union.
Best 20 Abraham Lincoln Quotes
1. “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
2. “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
3. “Whatever you are, be a good one.”
4. “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
5. “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”
6. “I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.”
7. “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”
8. “I will prepare and some day my chance will come.”
9. “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
10. “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
11. “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
12. “I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”
13. “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
14. “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.”
15. “Folks will know how large your soul is, by the way you treat a dog!”
16. “Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
17. “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.”
18. “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.”
19. “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.”
20. “I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”
Abraham Lincoln Quotes On Leadership
1. “You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”
2. “I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.”
3. “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.”
4. “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.”
5. “Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.”
6. “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.”
7. “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.”
8. “Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose – and you allow him to make war at pleasure.”
9. “As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
10. “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 Quotes On Democracy
1. “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
2. “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.”
3. “The ballot is stronger than the bullet.”
4. “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.”
5. “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.”
6. “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.”
7. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
8. “No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.”
9. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”
10. “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.”
Abraham Lincoln Quotes On Education
1. “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”
2. “I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in.”
3. “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.”
4. “My best friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.”
5. “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.”
6. “Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.”
7. “I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”
8. “Teach the children so it will not be necessary to teach the adults.”
9. “Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.”
10. “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 Quotes On Success
1. “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”
2. “I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.”
3. “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
4. “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.”
5. “I do the very best I can, I mean to keep going. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me won’t matter. If I’m wrong, ten angels swearing I was right won’t make a difference.”
6. “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
7. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.”
8. “I am a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.”
9. “I will prepare and someday my chance will come.”
10. “Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”
Short Quotes Of Abraham Lincoln
1. “Whatever you are, be a good one.”
2. “My best friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.”
3. “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
4. “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
5. “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
6. “I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.”
7. “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.”
8. “I will prepare and some day my chance will come.”
9. “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
10. “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
