Abraham Lincoln Quotes

Abraham Lincoln Quote On Right and Wrong

You may burn my body to ashes, and scatter them to winds of heaven; you may drag my soul to the regions of darkness and despair to be tormented forever, but you will never get me to support a measure which I believe to be wrong, although by doing so I may accomplish what I believe to be right. -- Abraham Lincoln

Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he is wrong. -- Abraham Lincoln

It is my ambition and desire to so administer the affairs of government while I remain President that if at the end I have lost every other friend on earth I shall at least have one friend remaining and that one shall be down inside of me. -- Abraham Lincoln, 1863

Abraham Lincoln Quote On Being Tested and Preserving the Union

We say that we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We - even we here - hold the power, and bear the responsibility. 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. -- Abraham Lincoln, in his annual speech to Congress in 1862.

Abraham Lincoln Quote On Soldiers and Serving One's Country

This extraordinary war in which we are engaged falls heavily upon all classes of people, but the most heavily upon the soldier. For it has been said, all that a man hath will he give for his life, and while all contribute of their substance the soldier puts his life at stake, and often yields it up in his country's cause. The highest the merit, then, is due to the soldier. -- President Lincoln, 1864

Abraham Lincoln Quote On State Rights

I believe that each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man's rights - that each community, as a State, has a right to do as it pleases with all the concerns within that State that interfere with the right of no other State, and that the general government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that concerns the whole. -- Abraham Lincoln, 1858

Abraham Lincoln Quote On Strikes and Workers' Rights

I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to! I would to God that such a system prevailed all over the world. -- Abraham Lincoln, 1860

Abraham Lincoln Quote On a House Divided

"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. -- Abraham Lincoln, in a speech to the Republican State Convention in Springfield, Illinois on June 16, 1858. This convention named him a candidate for the United States Senate.

Abraham Lincoln Quote On Democracy

To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary. -- Abraham Lincoln, 1858

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. -- Abraham Lincoln, 1854. During the first Lincoln-Douglas debate.

Abraham Lincoln Quote On Keeping a Low Profile

What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.

Abraham Lincoln Quote His War Aims

My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the Union, and is neither to save or to destroy slavery. -- Lincoln, 1862