Quotes by Abraham Lincoln

When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim that 'a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one.

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

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

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

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.

'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
(attributed)

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.
(attributed)

You can fool some of the 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.
(attributed)

People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.
(in a book review)

Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention.
(in a letter to J. M. Cutts, October 26, 1863)

Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.
(letter to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, July 18, 1864)

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
(Lincoln's Own Stories)

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
(speech in Washington D.C., 1865)

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
(The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863)

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
(The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863)

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
(The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863)