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Abraham Lincoln Quotes – Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving since 1861. He is the president of America who is unpretentious and much remembered.
In his old age, he led his nation out of the American Civil War, maintained national unity, and abolished slavery.
However, as the war drew to a close, he became the first US president to be assassinated.
Although the story is heartwarming, there are many things we can learn as inspiration and motivation for ourselves.
There are many motivations that we can take, one of which is from the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, who changed the world view and humanity.
The following are 200 Abraham Lincoln Quotes that inspire and can take lessons from it.
Read also: 100 Moving Forward Quotes That Motivate Us To Be Better
Abraham Lincoln Quotes About Humanity And Inspiring Life
1. “Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer.”
2. “In law it is a good policy to never plead what you need not, lest you oblige yourself to prove what you can not.”
3. “Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling.”
4. “I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.”
5. “Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense.”
6. “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
7. “The United States government must not undertake to run the Churches. When an individual, in the Church or out of it, becomes dangerous to the public interest he must be checked.”
8. “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.”
9. “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”
10. “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 their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.”
11. “I desire to so conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, 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.”
12. “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.”
13. “The ballot is stronger than the bullet.”
14. “I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.”
15. “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.”
16. “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.”
17. “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
18. “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
19. “All I ask for the negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little,
that little let him enjoy.”
20. “I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.”
21. “No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle the sheet anchor of American republicanism.”
22. “It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”
23. “Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.”
24. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
25. “I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war. I will close by saying, God bless the women of America!”
26. “In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book.”
27. “The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.”
28. “I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.”
30. “What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?”
31. “Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”
32. “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.”
33. “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
34. “Property is the fruit of labor, property is desirable is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.”
35. “I can make a General in five minutes but a good horse is hard to replace.”
36. “My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don’t deny it. I’d rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh, anything but work.”
37. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
38. “If we have no friends, we have no pleasure; and if we have them, we are sure to lose them, and be doubly pained by the loss.”
39. “I distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of friends who would hold my hands while my enemies stab me.”
40. “If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already.”
41. “The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.”
42. “I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered, or my term expires, or Congress or the country forsakes me.”
43. “A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones.”
44. “The old general rule was that educated people did not perform manual labor. They managed to eat their bread, leaving the toil of producing it to the uneducated. This was not an insupportable evil to the working bees, so long as the class of drones remained very small. But now, especially in these free States, nearly all are educated, quite too nearly all, to leave the labor of the uneducated, in any wise adequate to the support of the whole. It follows from this that henceforth educated people must labor. Otherwise, education itself would become a positive and intolerable evil. No country can sustain, in idleness, more than a small percentage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at something productive.”
45. “On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we have been. When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that ‘all men are created equal’ a self evident truth; but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim ‘a self evident lie.’”
46. “Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.”
47. “Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time.”
48. “I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.”
49. “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free, honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.”
50. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other thing.”
51. “I’m a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.”
52. “I have a congenital aversion to failure.”
53.“I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has.”
54. “The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.”
55. “I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”
56. “And having thus chosen our course, without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear, and with manly hearts.”
57. “Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good.”
58. “What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.”
59. “Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
60. “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”
61. “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
62. “Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
63. “No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”
64. “Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed.”
65. “Love is the chain to lock a child to its parent.”
66. “There are no bad pictures; that’s just how your face looks sometimes.”
67. “You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry.”
68. “Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.”
69. “He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.”
70. “Every man’s happiness is his own responsibility.”
71. “If I am killed, I can die but once; but to live in constant dread of it, is to die over and over again.”
72. “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
73. “I would rather be a little nobody, then to be an evil somebody.”
74. “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.”
75. “fact: the ability to describe others as they see themselves.”
76. “A farce or comedy is best played; a tragedy is best read at home.”
77. “Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in.”
78. “For people who like that kind of a book that is the kind of book they will like.”
79. “I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization.”
80. “Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser–in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”
81. “The love of property and consciousness of right and wrong have conflicting places in our organization, which often makes a man’s course seem crooked, his conduct a riddle.”
82. “Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.”
83. “Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life.”
84. “And in the end it is not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.”
85. “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
86. “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
87. “I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.”
88. “Towering genius distains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.”
89. “There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.”
90. “In very truth he was, the noblest work of God an honest man.”
91. “I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.”
92. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
93. “The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.”
94. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
95. “Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.”
96. “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.”
97. “I know not how to aid you, save in the assurance of one of mature age, and much severe experience, that you can not fail, if you resolutely determine, that you will not.”
98. “I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded, in this connection, of a story of an old Dutch farmer who remarked to a companion once that ‘it was not best to swap horses while crossing streams’.”
99. “I have stepped out upon this platform that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement I have the best of the bargain.”
100. “The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity.”
Read also: 100 Quotes About Finding Yourself That All Means About Life
101. “It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.”
102. “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
103. “Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.”
104. “I would rather be a little nobody, then to be an evil somebody.”
105. “Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.”
106. “Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life.”
107. “A new book is like a friend that I have yet to meet.”
108. “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.”
109. “I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has.”
110. “If I am killed, I can die but once; but to live in constant dread of it, is to die over and over again.”
111. “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.”
112. “I have stepped out upon this platform that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement I have the best of the bargain.”
113. “The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity.”
114. “Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
115. “I’m a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.”
116. “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
117. “I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.”
118. “Whatever you are, be a good one.”
119. “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.”
120. “Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.”
121. “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”
122. “I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.”
123. “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
124. “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
125. “I’m a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.”
126. “Everybody likes a compliment.”
127. “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
128. “I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”
129. “Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today”
130. “I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”
131. “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free”
132. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
133. “You can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.”
134. “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.”
135. “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
136. “I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.”
137. “Every person’s happiness is their own responsibility.”
138. “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
139. “You can tell the greatness of someone by what makes them angry”
140. “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.”
141. “Every man’s happiness is his own responsibility.”
142. “Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.”
143. “I have a congenital aversion to failure.”
144. “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
145. “The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.”
146. “We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety clouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.”
147. “Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good.”
148. “What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.”
149. “There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.”
150. “Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.”
151. “If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”
152. “Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it.”
153. “You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.”
154. “He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.”
155. “My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”
156. “And in the end it is not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.”
157. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”
158. “There are no bad pictures; that’s just how your face looks sometimes.”
159. “A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.”
160. “Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who improves his workmanship.”
161. “I will prepare and someday my chance will come.”
162. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”
163. “I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”
164. “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”
165. “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
166. “Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.”
167. “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”
168. “The better part of one’s life consists of his friendships.”
169. “I am not concerned that you have fallen, I am concerned that you arise.”
170. “No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”
171. “That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.”
172. “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.”
173. “All I have learned, I learned from books.”
174. “Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.”
175. “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
176. “I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”
177. “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
178. “Perhaps a man’s character was like a tree, and his reputation like a shadow; the shadow is what we think of it, the tree is like the real thing.”
179. “I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.”
180. “Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.”
181. “To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own.”
182. “Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in.”
183. “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”
184. “Do good to those who hate you and turn their ill will to friendship.”
185. “The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.”
186. “It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
187. “Love is the chain to lock a child to its parent.”
188. “The ballot is stronger than the bullet.”
189. “My best friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.”
190. “Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged.”
191. “I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how a man could look up into the sky and say there is no God.”
192. “Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.”
193. “A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.”
194. “For people who like that kind of a book that is the kind of book they will like.”
195. “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.”
196. “Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
197. “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will because we destroyed ourselves.”
198. “Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed.”
199. “No man is poor who has a Godly mother.”
200. “I distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of friends who would hold my hands while my enemies stab me.”
Those are 200 Abraham Lincoln who inspire and also motivate us about life, also humanity value that we can learn.