19 quotes
Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
Attributed
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
Attributed
Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.
Attributed
I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.
Attributed
The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.
Attributed
We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot.
Attributed
I do not like that man. I must get to know him better.
Attributed Costs of Administering Reparation for Work Injuries in Illinois (1952)
We, the People are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts — not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution.
Attributed
When someone asked Abraham Lincoln, after he was elected president, what he was going to do about his enemies, he replied, "I am going to destroy them. I am going to make them my friends."
Attributed as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989)
There is an important sense in which government is distinctive from administration. One is perpetual, the other is temporary and changeable. A man may be loyal to his government and yet oppose the particular principles and methods of administration.
Attributed
It is my ambition and desire to so administer the affairs of the government while I remain President that if at the end I have lost every other friend on earth I shall at least have one friend remaining and that one shall be down inside me.
Attributed
You may burn my body to ashes, and scatter them to the winds of heaven; you may drag my soul down to the regions of darkness and despair to be tormented forever; but you will never get me to support a measure which I believe to be wrong, although by doing so I may accomplish that which I believe to be right.
Attributed
The President to-night has a dream:—He was in a party of plain people, and, as it became known who he was, they began to comment on his appearance. One of them said:—"He is a very common-looking man". The President replied:—"The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason he makes so many of them".
Attributed
When I left Springfield I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. Yes, I do love Jesus.
Attributed
As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is destroyed. I feel at the moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of the war. God grant that my suspicions should prove groundless.
Attributed
The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace, and it conspires against it in times of adversity. It's more despotic than monarchy. It's more insolent than autocracy. It's more selfish than bureaucracy. ... Corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow.
Attributed
After the failure of his first experimental explorations around Vicksburg, a committee of abolition war managers waited upon the President and demanded the General’s removal, on the false charge that he was a whiskey drinker, and little better than a common drunkard. “Ah!” exclaimed Honest Old Abe, “you surprise me, gentlemen. But can you tell me where he gets his whiskey?” “We cannot, Mr. President. But why do you desire to know?” “Because, if I can only find out, I will send a barrel of this wonderful whiskey to every general in the army.”
Attributed
A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started. He is going to sit where you are sitting, and when you are gone; attend to those things, which you think are important. You may adopt all policies you please, but how they are carried out depends on him. He will assume control of your cities, states and nations. All your books are going to be judged, praised or condemned by him. The fate of humanity is in his hands. So it might be well to pay him some attention.
Attributed
"The Suicide's Soliloquy," published in the Sangamo Journal (25 August 1838); there is no consensus among historians whether or not this poem was written by Lincoln.
Sends forth his midnight moans
Fierce wolves shall o'er my carcase growl
Or buzzards pick my bones.
No fellow-man shall learn my fate
Or where my ashes lie
Unless by beasts drawn round their bait
Or by the ravens' cry.
Yes! I've resolved the deed to do
And this the place to do it
This heart I'll rush a dagger through
Though I in hell should rue it!
Hell! What is hell to one like me
Who pleasures never knew
By friends consigned to misery
By hope deserted too?
To ease me of this power to think
That through my bosom raves
I'll headlong leap from hell's high brink
And wallow in its waves.
Though devils yell, and burning chains
May waken long regret
Their frightful screams, and piercing pains
Will help me to forget.
Yes! I'm prepared, through endless night
To take that fiery berth!
Think not with tales of hell to fright
Me, who am damn'd on earth!
Sweet steel! come forth from your sheath
And glist'ning, speak your powers
Rip up the organs of my breath
And draw my blood in showers!
I strike! It quivers in that heart
Which drives me to this end
I draw and kiss the bloody dart
My last — my only friend!
Attributed The Suicide's Soliloquy (1838)