I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where will you stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?

If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts the country will be settled just as surely as all other difficulties of like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted.

When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion.

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.

Avoid popularity if you would have peace.

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.

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.

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 purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.

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.

The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.

I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.

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

In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and to the young, it comes with bitterest agony because it takes them unawares. I have had experience enough to know what I say.

When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.

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

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.

It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles - the oppression of tyranny - to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.

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

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.

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

It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.

The assertion that 'all men are created equal' was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.

Repeal the Missouri Compromise - repeal all compromises - repeal the Declaration of Independence - repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It will be the abundance of man's heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.

In so far as the government lands can be disposed of, I am in favor of cutting up the wild lands into parcels so that every poor man may have a home.

Gold is good in its place; but loving, brave, patriotic men are better than gold.

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

For my part, I desire to see the time when education - and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and industry - shall become much more general than at present, and should be gratified to have it in my power to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might have a tendency to accelerate the happy period.

These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people; and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel.

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.

No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.

My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.

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

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, cannot long retain it.

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

The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in that we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.

That our government should have been maintained in its original form from its establishment until now is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed and crumbled away. Through that period, it was felt by all to be an undecided experiment; now, it is understood to be a successful one.

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

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

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

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.

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

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.

Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be, as the egg is to the fowl; we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.

Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.

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

I can make more generals, but horses cost money.

I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.

These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.

I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.

I have great respect for the semicolon; it is a mighty handy little fellow.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.

My father... removed from Kentucky to... Indiana, in my eighth year... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up... Of course when I came of age, I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher... but that was all.

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. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed.

That I am not a member of any Christian church is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures, and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular.

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.

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

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

The legal right of the Southern people to reclaim their fugitives I have constantly admitted. The legal right of Congress to interfere with their institution in the states, I have constantly denied.

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

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

We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.

If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.

The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.

I go for all sharing the privileges of the government, who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).

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.

If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.

Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.