Abraham Lincoln

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.

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

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.

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.

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.

It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river.

The people will save their government, if the government itself will do its part only indifferently well.

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.

I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.

Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

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 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.

I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.

I am not concerned that you have fallen; I am concerned that you arise.

I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others.

We can succeed only by concert. It is not 'Can any of us imagine better?' but, 'Can we all do better?'