Abraham Lincoln
16th President of the U.S. (1861-1865)
(1809-1865)
"I could not have slept to-night if I had left that helpless little creature to perish on the ground." [reply to friends who chided him for delaying them by stopping to return a fledgling to its nest.]
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s [or woman’s] character, give him [or her] power."
“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.”
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
"Don't pray that God's on our side, pray that we're on his side."
"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts."
"Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived."
"I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice."
"Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."
"It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong."
"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."
"No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."
"The ballot is stronger than the bullet."
"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."
"Those who would deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it."
"You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time."
“We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.”
“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.”
“The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”
“My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.”
*"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being."
*"I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."
[*NOTE from All-Creatures.org: There is considerable doubt that these quotes can be attributed to President Abraham Lincoln. The only references seem to be third party ones with unverifiable original references. We, and others, have found no such quote references in any of Lincoln's writings or in authoritative works on Lincoln. We have included these quotes on this site only because of their widespread use of being attributed to him.]