Abraham Lincoln

All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

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

Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.

Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.

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

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

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

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

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

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

I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.

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

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

I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.

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

Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.