WIST

If all men were just, there would still be some, though not so much, need of government.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
“Fragments on Government” (1854?)
In Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 1832-1858, Library of America ed. (1989)

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 vanish from this earth.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
“Gettysburg Address,” closing words (19 Nov 1863)

In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
“Meditation on the Divine Will,” Speech Fragment (Sep 1862)

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
“On Slavery and Democracy” (fragment) (1858?)

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
“The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions,” Address to Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield (27 Jan 1838)

Holding it a sound maxim that it is better to be only sometimes right than at all times wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous I shall be ready to renounce them.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
“To the People of Sangamo County,” campaign statement, Illinois State Legislature Race (9 Mar 1862)

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.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
“To the People of Sangamo County,” speech running for Illinois state legislature (9 Mar 1832)

You have heard the story, haven’t you, about the man who was tarred and feathered and carried out of town on a rail? A man in the crowd asked him how he liked it. His reply was that if it was not for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed (1861))
When asked by a friend how he liked being President.

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

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six sharpening my axe.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

When I am getting ready to persuade a man, I spend one third of the time thinking about myself what I’m going to say and two thirds of the time thinking about him and what he is going to say.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

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

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

I do the very best I know how — the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)
In Francis Carpenter, Six Months at the White House, ch. 68 (1866)

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.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

You cannot escape the responsibility tomorrow by evading it today.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

I don’t know who my grandfather was; I’m much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

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

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)
Quoted in F B Carpenter, The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln (1867); Lincoln repeated this as told to him by a fellow-passenger in a stagecoach.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)
Quoted in Frederick Trevor Hill, Lincoln the Lawyer, ch. 19 (1906). Hill adds, "History has considerately sheltered the identity of the victim."

I have simply tried to do what seemed best each day, as each day came.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

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

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)
Recalled by Lincoln from an Indiana church meeting talk  by "an old man named Glenn" in the 1810s.

 

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

Gentlemen, why don’t you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh, I should die.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

I care not for a man’s religion whose dog or cat are not the better for it.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

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

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

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

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

All through life be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)
Quoted in William M Thayer, The Pioneer Boy (1882).

I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)
No early authority has been found citing this from Lincoln. However, in The Sociable Story-teller (1846), Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor 1410-1437, was quoted : "Do I not most effectually destroy my enemies, in making them my friends?"

You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)
First cited in Alexander K. McClure, “Abe” Lincoln’s Yarns and Stories, (1904), in the above form. Traditionally attributed to a speech in Clinton, Ill. (2 Sep 1858), but not found in any surviving Lincoln documents. Also attributed to P.T. Barnum and Bob Dylan.

The Lord prefers common-looking people. That’s why he makes so many of them.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

Quoted in J. Morgan, Our President, ch. 6.

Perhaps a man’s character is like a tree and his reputation like its shadow; the shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)
    (Source)

In Noah Brooks, "Lincoln's Imagination," Scribner’s Monthly, Vol. 18 (May-Oct 1879)

People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed) (1861)
Quoted in G.W.E. Russell, Collections and Recollections, ch. 30 (1898), regarding “an unreadably sentimental book.”

According to Anthony Gross, Lincoln’s Own Stories (1902), Lincoln’s was speaking to Robert Dale Owen, who had insisted on reading to Lincoln a long manuscript on spiritualism. "Well, for those who like that sort of thing, I should think it is just about the sort of thing they would like."

In Emanual Hertz, ed., "Father Abraham," Lincoln Talks: A Biography in Anecdote (1939), the response was to a young poet asking him about his newly published poems.

I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right; but, it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I, and this nation, should be on the Lord’s side.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed) (1862)

Reply to a clergyman who said he hoped the Lord was on our side.  In  Francis B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln, p. 282 (1867).  In some places cited as 1864.

Most of us are just about as happy as we make up our minds to be.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Spurious)
Not found any earlier than in casual attribution in 1914. More info here.

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.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Spurious)
Frequently quoted, but does not appear in the record of Lincoln's writings or in any first person account.

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

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Second Inaugural Address, conclusion (4 Mar 1865)

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Address, Cooper Institute, New York, closing words (27 Feb 1860)

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: “And this, too, shall pass away.” How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! — how consoling in the depth of affliction!

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Address, Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee (30 Sep 1859)

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. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Annual Message to Congress (1 Dec 1862)

It is as much the duty of government to render prompt justice against itself, in favor of citizens, as it is to administer the same between private individuals.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
First Annual Message to Congress (3 Dec 1861)

A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations … is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
First Inaugural Address (1861)

By the frame of the Government under which we live this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance no Administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
First Inaugural Address (4 Mar 1861)
Full text

I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
First Inaugural Address, final paragraph (4 Mar 1861)
A substantially revised version of the original text written by William Seward.

As a nation we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except Negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics.” When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Letter (1855)

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Letter to Albert G. Hodges (4 Apr. 1864)

If both factions, or neither, shall abuse you, you will probably be about right.  Beware of being assailed by one and praised by the other.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Letter to Gen. John M. Schofield (27 May 1863)

I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a Dictator. Of course it was not for this, but spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes, can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Letter to Gen. Joseph Hooker (26 Jan 1863)

This is a world of compensation; and 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.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Letter to H. L. Pierce et al. (6 Apr 1859)

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

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Letter to Isham Reavis (5 Nov 1855)

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

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Letter to Isham Reavis (5 Nov. 1855)

I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason: I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Letter to Mrs. Orville H. Browning (1 Apr 1838)

I must save this government if possible. What I cannot do, of course I will not do; but it may as well be understood, once for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Letter to Reverdy Johnson (26 Jul 1862)

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you shall 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. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect. If today he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, “I see no probability of the British invading us”; but he will say to you, “Be silent: I see it if you don’t.”

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Letter to William Herndon (15 Feb 1848)
Full text.

Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Message to Congress (4 Jul 1861)

It was a time when a man with a policy would have been fatal to the country. I have never had a policy; I have simply tried to do what seemed best each day as each day came.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Remark to John M. Palmer
In Emanuel Hertz, ed., Lincoln Talks: A Biography in Anecdote, "Father Abraham" (1939)

Die when I may, 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.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Remark to Joshua Speed (Feb. 1865)
In Melancthon Woolsey Stryker's Hamilton, Lincoln & Other Addresses (1896). Also in John Y. Simon, Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (1975), pp. 141-142.

How hard, oh, how hard it is to die and leave one’s country no better than if one had never lived for it.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Remark to William H. Herndon, quoted in letter from Herndon to Ward H. Herdon (6 Mar 1866)
In Emanuel Hertz (ed.), The Hidden Lincoln: From the Letters and Papers of William H. Herndon, 1.2 (1940)

The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Remarks in the House of Representatives (20 Jun 1848)
Cited

Often an idea would occur to me which seemed to have force. … I never let one of those ideas escape me, but wrote it on a scrap of paper and put it in that drawer. In that way I saved my best thoughts on the subject, and, you know, such things often come in a kind of intuitive way more clearly than if one were to sit down and deliberately reason them out. To save the results of such mental action is true intellectual economy.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Remarks to James F. Wilson (Jun 1862)
In G. Iles, ed., Autobiography, Greatest Americans (1924)

I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other class is mistaken in the belief, and perhaps in some respects both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me; for, unless I am more deceived in myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what it is I will do it! These are not, however, the days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I am not to expect a direct revelation. I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible and learn what appears to be wise and right. The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Reply to Emancipation Memorial Presented by Chicago Christians of All Denominations (13 Sep 1862)
Full text. Notes.

That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprize. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Reply to New York Workingmen’s Democratic Republican Association (21 Mar 1864)

I desire to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Reply to the Missouri Committee of Seventy (30 Sep 1864)

What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle, the sheet-anchor of American republicanism. [...] According to our ancient faith, the just powers of governments are derived from the consent of the governed. Now the relation of master and slave is pro tanto a total violation of this principle. The master not only governs the slave without his consent, but he governs him by a set of rules altogether different from those which he prescribes for himself. Allow all the governed an equal voice in the government, and that, and that only, is self-government.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Speech at Peoria, Illinois (1854)
In response to Stephen Douglas. Full text.

To give the victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Speech fragment (c. 18 May 1858)

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

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Speech to 140th Indiana regiment (17 Mar 1865)

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Speech, Edwardsville, Illinois (11 Sep 1858)

Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Speech, Washington, DC (11 Apr 1865).
His last public address.

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

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Speech, Washington, DC (1865)
Most commonly attributed to a speech in Washington (1865), but also recalled by Joseph Gillespie (author, long-time friend) regarding pardons for some deserters in the summer of 1864 (The Lincoln Memorial: Album-Immortelles, ed. O. Oldroyd, 1882)

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
State of the Union address (3 Dec 1861)
    (Source)