Quotes

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.

He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.

My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.

I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.

A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.

Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

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.

When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.

The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.

Repeal the Missouri Compromise - repeal all compromises - repeal the Declaration of Independence - repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It will be the abundance of man's heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.

Avoid popularity if you would have peace.