The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln Quotes

“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.”
― Abraham Lincoln, The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln: A Book of Quotations

“When men take it in their heads today to hang gamblers or burn murderers, they should recollect that, in the confusion usually attending such transactions, they will be as likely to hang or burn someone who is neither a gambler nor a murderer as one who is; and that, acting upon the example they set, the mob of tomorrow may, and probably will, hang or burn some of them by the very same mistake. —“The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions”: Address before the
Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838”
― Abraham Lincoln, The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln: A Book of Quotations