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I Hold That If The Almighty Had Ever Made A Set Of Men That Should Do All The Eating And None Of The Work, He Would Have Made Them With Mouths Only And No Hands, And If He Had Ever Made Another Class That He Intended Should Do All The Work And None Of The Eating, He Would Have Made Them Without Mouths And With All Hands.

-Abraham Lincoln

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I Hold That If

Abraham Lincoln

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I Hold That If The Almighty Had Ever Made A Set Of Men That Should Do All The Eating And None Of The Work, He Would Have Made Them With Mouths Only And No Hands, And If He Had Ever Made Another Class That He Intended Should Do All The Work And None Of The Eating, He Would Have Made Them Without Mouths And With All Hands.

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I Failed, I Failed, And That Is About All That Can Be Said About It.

One Section Of Our Country Believes Slavery Is Right, And Ought To Be Extended, While The Other Believes It Is Wrong, And Ought Not To Be Extended.

I Was Raised To Farm Work.

Property Is The Fruit Of Labor; Property Is Desirable; It Is A Positive Good.

Freedom Is The Natural Condition Of The Human Race, In Which The Almighty Intended Men To Live. Those Who Fight The Purpose Of The Almighty Will Not Succeed. They Always Have Been, They Always Will Be Beaten.

I Intend No Modification Of My Oft-expressed Wish That All Men Everywhere Could Be Free.

In Times Like The Present, Men Should Utter Nothing For Which They Would Not Willingly Be Responsible Through Time And Eternity.

Every Person Is Responsible For His Own Looks After 40.

I Will Do What I Think Is Right And When I Discover That It Is Wrong, I Will Change It.

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By Adoption Of These Principles, The Long-felt Want For A Uniform Medium Will Be Satisfied. The Taxpayers Will Be Saved Immense Sums Of Interest, Discounts, And Exchanges. The Financing Of All Public Enterprises, The Maintenance Of Stable Government And Ordered Progress, And The Conduct Of The Treasury Will Become Matters Of Practical Administration. The People Can And Will Be Furnished With A Currency As Safe As Their Own Government.

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I See A Very Dark Cloud On America's Horizon, And That Cloud Is Coming From Rome.

The Land-grant University System Is Being Built On Behalf Of The People, Who Have Invested In These Public Universities Their Hopes, Their Support, And Their Confidence.

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Nothing Is More Damaging To You Than To Do Something That You Believe Is Wrong.

There Is Nothing True Anywhere, The True Is Nowhere To Be Seen; If You Say You See The True, This Seeing Is Not The True One.

If Ever This Free People, If This Government Itself Is Ever Utterly Demoralized, It Will Come From This Incessant Human Wriggle And Struggle For Office, Which Is But A Way To Live Without Work.

He Will Have To Learn, I Know, That All People Are Not Just- That All Men And Women Are Not True. Teach Him That For Every Scoundrel There Is A Hero That For Every Enemy There Is A Friend. Let Him Learn Early That The Bullies Are The Easiest People To Lick.

The Struggle Of Today Is Not Altogether For Today - It Is For A Vast Future Also.

Upon The Subject Of Education, Not Presuming To Dictate Any Plan Or System Respecting It, I Can Only Say That I View It As The Most Important Subject Which We As A People Can Be Engaged In.

Work, Work, Work, Is The Main Thing.

The Trouble With Hooker Is That He's Got His Headquarters Where His Hindquarters Aught To Be.

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I Have Never Studied The Art Of Paying Compliments To Women; But I Must Say That If All That Has Been Said By Orators And Poets Since The Creation Of The World In Praise Of Women Were Applied To The Women Of America, It Would Not Do Them Justice For Their Conduct During This War.

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I Remember My Mother's Prayers And They Have Always Followed Me. They Have Clung To Me All My Life.

Let There Be No Compromise On The Question Of Extending Slavery. If There Be, All Our Labor Is Lost, And, Ere Long, Must Be Done Again.

The Privilege Of Creating And Issuing Money Is Not Only The Supreme Prerogative Of Government, But It Is The Government's Greatest Creative Opportunity.

Shall We Stop This Bleeding?

Character Is The Tree, Reputation Is The Shadow.

I Am The President Of The United States Of America, Clothed In Immense Power! You Will Procure Me These Votes.

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I Have Just Read Your Dispatch About Sore-tongued And Fatigued Horses, Will You Pardon Me For Asking What The Horses Of Your Army Have Done Since The Battle Of Antietam That Fatigues Anything?

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Better To Remain Silent And Be Thought A Fool Than To Speak Out And Remove All Doubt.

Whereas, The Senate Of The United States, Devoutly Recognizing The Supreme Authority And Just Government Of Almighty God, In All The Affairs Of Men And Of Nations, Has, By A Resolution, Requested The President To Designate And Set Apart A Day For National Prayer And Humiliation.

Must A Government Be Too Strong For The Liberties Of Its People Or Too Weak To Maintain Its Own Existence?

Leave Nothing For To-morrow Which Can Be Done To-day.

Procrastination

The Judgments Of The Lord Are True And Righteous Altogether.

Divine Revelation

Tangible Language, Which Often Tells More Falsehoods Than Truths.

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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.

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I Have Neither Time Nor Disposition To Enter Into Discussion With The Friend, And End This Occasion By Suggesting For Her Consideration The Question Whether, If It Be True That The Lord Has Appointed Me To Do The Work She Has Indicated, It Is Not Probable That He Would Have Communicated Knowledge Of The Fact To Me As Well As To Her.

A New Book Is Like A Friend That I Have Yet To Meet

If A Man Will Stand Up And Assert, And Repeat And Re-assert, That Two And Two Do Not Make Four, I Know Nothing In The Power Of Argument That Can Stop Him.

I Am Not A Very Sentimental Man; And The Best Sentiment I Can Think Of Is, That If You Collect The Signatures Of All Persons Who Are No Less Distinguished Than I, You Will Have A Very Undistinguishing Mass Of Names.

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The Loss Of Enemies Does Not Compensate For The Loss Of Friends.

May The Almighty Grant That The Cause Of Truth, Justice, And Humanity, Shall In No Wise Suffer At My Hands.

Glory To God In The Highest, Ohio Has Saved The Nation.

I Am Always For The Man Who Wishes To Work.

I Hold That While A Man Exists, It Is His Duty To Improve Not Only His Own Condition, But To Assist In Ameliorating Mankind.

Why Should There Not Be A Patient Confidence In The Ultimate Justice Of The People? Is There Any Better Or Equal Hope In The World?

We Meet This Evening, Not In Sorrow, But In Gladness Of Heart.

I Told Myself, "lincoln, You Can Never Make A Lawyer If You Do Not Understand What Demonstrate Means." So I Left My Situation In Springfield, Went Home To My Father's House, And Stayed There Till I Could Give Any Proposition In The Six Books Of Euclid At Sight. I Then Found Out What "demonstrate" Means, And Went Back To My Law Studies.

Familiarize Yourself With The Chains Of Bondage And You Prepare Your Own Limbs To Wear Them.

It Is A Pleasure To Be Able To Quote Lines To Fit Any Occasion.

All My Life I Have Tried To Pluck A Thistle And Plant A Flower Wherever The Flower Would Grow In Thought And Mind.

I Am For Liberty Of Conscience In Its Noblest, Broadest, And Highest Sense. But I Cannot Give Liberty Of Conscience To The Pope And His Followers, The Papists, So Long As They Tell Me, Through All Their Councils, Theologians, And Canon Laws That Their Conscience Orders Them To Burn My Wife, Strangle My Children, And Cut My Throat When They Find Their Opportunity.

I Freely Acknowledge Myself The Servant Of The People, According To The Bond Of Service - The United States Constitution; And That, As Such, I Am Responsible To Them.

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If You Want Your Name To Be Remembered After Your Death Either Do Something Worth Writing Or Write Some Thing Worth Reading

Hypocrite: The Man Who Murdered His Parents, And Then Pleaded For Mercy On The Grounds That He Was An Orphan.

Discipline Is Choosing Between What You Want Now, And What You Want Most.

Why Don't I Drink From A Straw? Because Straws Are For Suckers.

Think Of Strangers As Friends You Not Met Yet.

I Don't Believe In A Law To Prevent A Man From Getting Rich; It Would Do More Harm Than Good. So While We Do Not Propose Any War Upon Capital, We Do Wish To Allow The Humblest Man An Equal Chance To Get Rich With Everybody Else.

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The World Has Never Had A Good Definition Of The Word Liberty

It Is Not The Qualified Voters, But The Qualified Voters Who Choose To Vote, That Constitute Political Power.

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I Hope It Will Not Be Irreverent In Me To Say, That If It Be 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

A Lawyer's Time And Advice Are His(her) Stock In Trade.

No Policy That Does Not Rest Upon Some Philosophical Public Opinion Can Be Permanently Maintained.

I Couldn't Be Two Faced. If I Had Two Faces, I Wouldn't Wear This One.

Wanting To Work Is So Rare A Merit, That It Should Be Encouraged.

A Man's Legs Must Be Long Enough To Reach The Ground.

All The Armies Of Europe Combined Could Not By Force Make A Track Upon The Blue Ridge, Or Take A Drink From The Ohio. If We Are To Be Destroyed, We Must Do It Ourselves.

The Shepherd Drives The Wolf From The Sheep's For Which The Sheep Thanks The Shepherd As His Liberator, While The Wolf Denounces Him For The Same Act As The Destroyer Of Liberty. Plainly, The Sheep And The Wolf Are Not Agreed Upon A Definition Of Liberty.

If You Have Never Failed You Have Never Lived.

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It Behooves Us Then To Humble Ourselves Before The Offended Power To Confess Our National Sins And To Pray For Clemency And Forgiveness.

I Did Say, At Chicago, In My Speech There, That I Do Wish To See The Spread Of Slavery Arrested And To See It Placed Where The Public Mind Shall Rest In The Belief That It Is In Course Of Ultimate Extinction.

The Lord Spared The Fitten And The Rest He Seen Fitten To Die.

Reduce The Supply Of Black Labor By Colonizing The Black Laborer Out Of The Country, And By Precisely So Much You Increase The Demand For And Wages Of White Labor.

Every Blade Of Grass Is A Study; And To Produce Two, Where There Was But One, Is Both A Profit And A Pleasure.

Never Do Anything For Anyone Who Can Just As Well Do It Themself

Don't Pray That God's On Our Side, Pray That We're On His Side.

As Long As The Almighty Permitted Intelligent Men, Created In His Image And Likeness, To Fight In Public And Kill Each Other While The World Looks On Approvingly, It's Not For Me To Deprive The Chickens Of The Same Privilege.

I Think That If Anything Can Be Proved By Natural Theology, It Is That Slavery Is Morally Wrong. God Gave Man A Mouth To Receive Bread, Hands To Feed It, And His Hand Has A Right To Carry Bread To His Mouth Without Controversy.

I Was Born And Have Ever Remaind [sic] In The Most Humble Walks Of Life.

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Our Government Rests In Public Opinion. Whoever Can Change Public Opinion, Can Change The Government, Practically Just So Much.

I Have Always Wanted To Deal With Everyone I Meet Candidly And Honestly. If I Have Made Any Assertion Not Warranted By Facts, And It Is Pointed Out To Me, I Will Withdraw It Cheerfully.

Every Man Is Born An Original, But Sadly, Most Men Die Copies.

Doubtless You Begin To Understand How Disagreeable It Is To Me To Do A Thing Arbitrarily, When It Is Unsatisfactory To Others Associated With Me.

If I Had My Way, This War Would Never Have Been Commenced. If I Had Been Allowed My Way This War Would Have Been Ended Before This.

The Way For A Young Man To Rise Is To Improve Himself In Every Way He Can, Never Suspecting That Anybody Wishes To Hinder Him.

Get Books, Sit Yourself Down Anywhere, And Go To Reading Them Yourself.

When Arguing With A Fool, Make Sure The Opponent Isn't Doing The Exact Same Thing.

The Better Angels Of Our Nature

In The First Place, I Insist That Our Fathers Did Not Make This Nation Half Slave And Half Free, Or Part Slave And Part Free. I Insist That They Found The Institution Of Slavery Existing Here. They Did Not Make It So, But They Left It So Because They Knew Of No Way To Get Rid Of It At That Time.

Through Their Deeds, The Dead Of Battle Have Spoken More Eloquently For Themselves Than Any Of The Living Ever Could. But We Can Only Honor Them By Rededicating Ourselves To The Cause For Which They Gave A Last Full Measure Of Devotion.

Legislation And Adjudication Must Follow, And Conform To, The Progress Of Society.

Progress Of Society

When I Do Good, I Feel Good. When I Do Bad, I Feel Bad. That's My Religion.

My Faith In The Proposition That Each Man Should Do Precisely As He Pleases With All Which Is Exclusively His Own Lies At The Foundation Of The Sense Of Justice There Is In Me.

You Say Men Ought To Be Hung For The Way They Are Executing The Law; I Say The Way It Is Being Executed Is Quite As Good As Any Of Its Antecedents. It Is Being Executed In The Precise Way Which Was Intended From The First, Else Why Does No Nebraska Man Express Astonishment Or Condemnation? Poor Reeder Is The Only Public Man Who Has Been Silly Enough To Believe That Anything Like Fairness Was Ever Intended, And He Has Been Bravely Undeceived.

This Nation Under God

I Claim Not To Have Controlled Events, But Confess Plainly That Events Have Controlled Me. Now, At The End Of Three Years Struggle The Nation's Condition Is Not What Either Party, Or Any Man Devised, Or Expected. God Alone Can Claim It. Whither It Is Tending Seems Plain. If God Now Wills The Removal Of A Great Wrong, And Wills Also That We Of The North As Well As You Of The South, Shall Pay Fairly For Our Complicity In That Wrong, Impartial History Will Find Therein New Cause To Attest And Revere The Justice And Goodness Of God.

You Cannot Build Character And Courage By Taking Away People's Initiative And Independence. You Cannot Help People Permanently By Doing For Them What They Could And Should Do For Themselves.

I Am For . . . Each Individual Doing Just As He Chooses In All Matters Which Concern Nobody Else.

We Will Make Converts Day By Day; We Will Grow Strong By The Violence And Injustice Of Our Adversaries. And, Unless Truth Be A Mockery And Justice A Hollow Lie, We Will Be In The Majority After A While.

A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand.

Inspirational Life

My Great Concern Is Not Whether You Have Failed, But Whether You Are Content With Your Failure.

All True Wisdom Is Found On T-shirts.

I Never Tire Of Reading Tom Paine.

In 1841 You And I Had Together A Tedious Low-water Trip, On A Steam Boat From Louisville To St. Louis. You May Remember, As I Well Do, That From Louisville To The Mouth Of The Ohio There Were, On Board, Ten Or A Dozen Slaves, Shackled Together With Irons. That Sight Was A Continual Torment To Me; And I See Something Like It Every Time I Touch The Ohio, Or Any Other Slave-border.

The One Victory We Can Ever Call Complete Will Be That One Which Proclaims That There Is Not One Slave Or One Drunkard On The Face Of God's Green Earth.

I Have Got You Together To Hear What I Have Written Down. I Do Not Wish Your Advice About The Main Matterfor That I Have Determined For Myself.

Destroy Your Enemy By Making Him Your Friend.

Powerful Life Changing

The Good Old Maxims Of The Bible Are Applicable, And Truly Applicable To Human Affairs, And In This As In Other Things, We May Say Here That He Who Is Not For Us Is Against Us; He Would Gathereth Not With Us Scattereth.

It Is Not 'is God On My Side', But 'am I On God's Side'.

The Principles Of Jefferson Are The Definitions And Axioms Of Free Society.

To Stand In Silence When They Should Be Protesting Makes Cowards Of Men.

Give Me Six Hours To Chop Down A Tree And I Will Spend The First Four Sharpening The Axe.

As Our Case Is New, So We Must Think Anew, And Act Anew.

As The Chief Speaker At The Dedication Of The National Cemetery At The Gettysburg Battlefield, Statesman Edward Everett Wrote To Lincoln: I Should Be Glad If I Could Flatter Myself That I Came As Near To The Central Idea Of The Occasion In Two Hours As You Did In Two Minutes.

When I Came Of Age I Did Not Know Much. Still Somehow, I Could Read, Write, And Cipher To The Rule Of Three.... The Little Advancei Now Have Upon This Store Of Education, I Have Picked Up From Time To Time Under The Pressure Of Necessity.

We Want, And Must Have, A National Policy, As To Slavery, Which Deals With It As Being Wrong.

The Political Horizon Looks Dark And Lowering; But The People, Under Providence, Will Set All Right.

Whether Or Not The World Would Be Vastly Benefited By A Total Banishment From It Of All Intoxicating Drinks Seems Not Now An Open Question. Three-fourths Of Mankind Confess The Affirmative With Their Tongues, And I Believe All The Rest Acknowledge It In Their Hearts.

The Best Way To Destroy An Enemy Is To Make Him A Friend.

We Better Know There Is A Fire Whence We See Much Smoke Rising Than We Could Know It By One Or Two Witnesses Swearing To It. The Witnesses May Commit Perjury, But The Smoke Cannot.

In Regards To This Great Book [the Bible], I Have But To Say It Is The Best Gift God Has Given To Man. All The Good The Savior Gave To The World Was Communicated Through This Book. But For It We Could Not Know Right From Wrong. All Things Most Desirable For Man's Welfare, Here And Hereafter, Are Found Portrayed In It.

Do You Think We Choose The Times Into Which We Are Born? Or Do We Fit The Times We Are Born Into?

When I Got Him Out He Was Near Froze Solid And Shivering. He Was Shaking So Hard That I Wasted Half A Glass Of Whiskey Trying To Aim It For His Mouth. Must Have Got Enough Of It Into Him, Though, Since It Did Seem To Bring Him Back To Life.

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