President · American · 1809 – 1865 · 133 quotes
I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back.
Abraham Lincoln
President · American · 1809 – 1865
I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.
I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
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.
All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax.
Some day I shall be President.
I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.
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.
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.
I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's 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.
Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
Whatever you are, be a good one.
Everybody likes a compliment.
Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.
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.
I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.
