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My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it.

— Abraham Lincoln

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More quotes by Abraham Lincoln

Without the military help of the black freedman, the war against the South could not have been won.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature — opposition to it, in his love of justice.

Speech at Peoria, Illinois (1854)

Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories.

We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.

Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.

All Abraham Lincoln quotes →

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A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

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From now on, everything in life will appear blurry to me. What’s the point of wiping my glasses when my vision has already left me?"

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You can never plan the future by the past.

Edmund Burke A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now does always last.

Abraham Cowley Poems (1656)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Abraham Lincoln (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.