Quotes

Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

A man watches his pear tree day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe pear at length falls into his lap.

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We, of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.

I can make more generals, but horses cost money.

The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.

The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.

When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.

When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government - that is despotism.

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

I have great respect for the semicolon; it is a mighty handy little fellow.

With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.

I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end... I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.

Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.

Some day I shall be President.

The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every calling, is diligence.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.

If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts the country will be settled just as surely as all other difficulties of like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted.

Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.

We think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this.

In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and to the young, it comes with bitterest agony because it takes them unawares. I have had experience enough to know what I say.