Abraham Lincoln Quotes

“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how a man could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar”
― Abraham Lincoln

“The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.”
― Abraham Lincoln, Speeches and Writings 1832–1858

“The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.”
― 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, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

“That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Women are the only people I am afraid of who I never thought would hurt me”
― 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

“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 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.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“When Lincoln was asked if God was on the Union’s side, Lincoln’s unvarying response was that what was really important was whether they were on God’s side.”
― Joe Wheeler, Abraham Lincoln, a Man of Faith and Courage: Stories of Our Most Admired President

“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 leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all mean are created free and equal.”
― Seth Grahame-Smith, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

“Lincoln grew immeasurably as he came to think of himself as an “instrument of God’s will.”
― Joe Wheeler, Abraham Lincoln, a Man of Faith and Courage: Stories of Our Most Admired President

“The bottom half of the page had descended into a doodle of a tiny man giving the middle finger to a giant, angry eagle with razor-sharp talons. Beneath it, the caption: To Mock a Killing Bird.”
― Seth Grahame-Smith

“Not married until 33, Abraham Lincoln said, "A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that cannot hurt me.”
― Shelby Foote, The Civil War, Vol. 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville

“If Mr. Fantastic and Professor X had a baby, there would be tons of questions, but also it would be Abraham Lincoln.”
― Daniel O'Brien, How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country

“They took it for more than it was, or anyhow for more than it said; the container was greater than the thing contained, and Lincoln became at once what he would remain for them, “the man who freed the slaves.” He would go down to posterity, not primarily as the Preserver of the Republic-which he was-but as the Great Emancipator, which he was not.”
― Shelby Foote, The Civil War, Vol. 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville

“Man’s glory lies not, Lincoln thought, in ‘his goodness,’ for this is often nonexistent. He derives glory, instead, from his being made in the image of the Living God.”
― Joe Wheeler, Abraham Lincoln, a Man of Faith and Courage: Stories of Our Most Admired President

“A visitor asked Lincoln what good news he could take home from an audience with the august executive. The president spun a story about a machine that baffled a chess champion by beating him thrice. The stunned champ cried while inspecting the machine, "There's a man in there!"Lincoln's good news, he confided from the heights of leadership, was that there was in fact a man in there.”
― Shelby Foote, The Civil War, Vol. 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville

“Abraham Lincoln was perhaps the greatest figure of the 19th century. Certainly of the five masters - Napoleon, Bismarck, Victoria, Browning and Lincoln, Lincoln is to me the most human and lovable. And I love him not because he was perfect but because he was not and yet triumphed. The world is full of illegitimate children. The world is full of folk whose taste was educated in the gutter. The world is full of people born hating and despising their fellows. To these I love to say: See this man. He was one of you and yet he became Abraham Lincoln.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, Writings: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade / The Souls of Black Folk / Dusk of Dawn / Essays and Articles

“But where Lincoln’s absent hand was felt most keenly was in race relations. Black codes were passed in state after state across the South—as restrictive as the antebellum laws governing free blacks (Richmond’s old laws had even regulated the carrying of canes). These codes propounded segregation, banned intermarriage, provided for special punishments for blacks, and, in one state, Mississippi, also prevented the ownership of land. Not even a congressional civil rights bill, passed over Johnson’s veto, could undo them. For their part, the Northern states were little better. During Reconstruction, employing a deadly brew of poll taxes, literacy requirements, and property qualifications, they abridged the right to vote more extensively than did their Southern counterparts.”
― Jay Winik, April 1865: The Month That Saved America

“[September] 27th [1862] I happened to be placed, being a humble instrument in the hands of our Heavenly Father, as I am, and as we all are, to work out His great purposes, I have desired that all my works and acts may be according to His will, and that it might be so, I have sought His aid; but if, after endeavoring to do my best in the light which He affords me, I find my efforts fail, I must believe that for some purpose unknown to me, He wills it otherwise.”
― Abraham Lincoln, An Autobiography of Abraham Lincoln

“[January] 2nd. [1863] When an individual in a church or out of it becomes dangerous to the public interest, he must be checked; but let the churches, as such, take care of themselves.”
― abraham lincoln, An Autobiography of Abraham Lincoln

“[September] 27th [1862] If I had had my way, this war would never have been commenced.”
― Abraham Lincoln, An Autobiography of Abraham Lincoln

“[August] 26th. [1862] I am a patient man, always willing to forgive on the Christian terms of repentance; and also to give ample time for repentance.”
― Abraham Lincoln, An Autobiography of Abraham Lincoln

“[August] 22nd. [1862] I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.”
― Abraham Lincoln, An Autobiography of Abraham Lincoln

“[January] 26th. [1863] ...and now beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories.”
― Abraham Lincoln, An Autobiography of Abraham Lincoln

“Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!-All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years," Abraham Lincoln proclaimed in 1837, two years before O'Sullivan's manifesto. "At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide.”
― Edward Achorn, Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
― Abraham Lincoln