Abraham Quotes

You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it.

Towering genius disdains a beaten path ... It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts for distinction.

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; asbad and good.

Experience is of particulars only.

Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.

Let reverence for the laws . . . become the political religion of the nation.

Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves As strong as thunder is in Jove's.

As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.

Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.

With high hope for the future, no prediction is ventured.

I am very little inclined on any occasion to say anything unless I hope to produce some good by it.

What a brave privilege is it to be free from all contentions, from all envying or being envied, from receiving or paying all kinds of ceremonies!

That everyone may receive at least a moderate education appears to be an objective of vital importance.

There have been fewer friends on earth than kings.

Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind.

It is a hard and nice subject for a man to speak of himself: it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ear to hear anything of praise from him.

With the Catching Ends the Pleasure of the Chase.

Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object

Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good.

Man is a perpetually wanting animal.

If all do not join now to save the good old ship of the Union this voyage nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage.

God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.

The world's a scene of changes.

In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man.

Who that has reason, and his smell, Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?

The loss of illusions and the discovery of identity, though painful at first, can be ultimately exhilarating and strengthening.

Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep'rate friends.

I could write shorter sermons but when I get started I'm too lazy to stop

Nothing new here, except my marrying, which to me is a matter of profound wonder.

Politicians are a set of men who have interests aside from the interests of the people and who, to say the most of them, are, taken as a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men

Every act of self control leads to a sense of self-respect.

I cannot imagine anyone looking at the sky and denying God.

Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest.

I could as easily bail out the Potomac River with a teaspoon as attend to all the details of the army.

The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity.

Thus let bygones be bygones. Let past differences, as nothing be.

O loving woman, man's fulfillment, sweet, Completing him not otherwise complete! How void and useless the sad remnant left Were he of her, his nobler part, bereft.

As a general rule, I abstain from reading reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly offer an answer.

If we believe the Bible, we must accept the fact that, in the old days, God and his angels came to humans in their sleep and made themselves known in dreams.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be 'the Union as it was'.

This human struggle and scramble for office, for a way to live without work, will finally test the strength of our institutions.

I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.

Law is nothing else but the best reason of wise men applied for ages to the transactions and business of mankind.

All creation is a mine, and every man a miner.

I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered, or my term expires, or Congress or the country forsakes me.

One's only security in life comes from doing something uncommonly well.

The loss of enemies does not compensate for the loss of friends.

As President, I have no eyes but constitutional eyes; I cannot see you.

If any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly, those who desire it for others

If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature.