90+ Abraham Lincoln Quotes That Will Change the Way You See the World

Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed.

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

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

Love is the chain to lock a child to its parent.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.

There are no bad pictures; that’s just how your face looks sometimes.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not themselves.

My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.

You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry.

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

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

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.

He has a right to criticize, he has the heart to help.

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

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

I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.

For people who like that kind of book that is the kind of book, they will like.

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.

A farce or comedy is best played; a tragedy is best read at home.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

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.

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

You can fool some 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.

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.

This is a world of compensations, and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.

When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

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.

Perhaps a man’s character was like a tree, and his reputation was like a shadow; the shadow is what we think of it, and the tree is like the real thing.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

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.

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

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.

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.

Character is like a tree and reputation is its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.

Man is not the only animal who labors, but he is the only one who improves his workmanship.

And in the end, it is not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

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.

I do the very best I know how – the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.

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.

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.

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.

What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.

I claim not to have controlled events but confess plainly that events have controlled me.

I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.

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.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I won’t deny it. I’d rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh — anything but work.

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.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free.

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

The demon of intemperance never seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

You can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, and do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.

I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.

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

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

The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he made so many of them.

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.

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.

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.

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.

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.

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 in which we as a people can be engaged.

It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear doing wrong.

I have been driven many times to 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.

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.

Every man’s happiness is his own responsibility.

All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

If I am killed, I can die but once; but to live in constant dread of it, is to die over and over again.

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.

I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all.

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, the man was made for immortality.

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.

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer.

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.

Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged.

It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.

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.

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

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

I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization.

What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?

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.