"The people know their rights, and they are never slow to assert and maintain them when they are invaded."

"I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause."

"True patriotism is better than the wrong kind of piety."

"If a man had more than one life, I think a little hanging would not hurt this one; but after he is once dead, we cannot bring him back, no matter how sorry we may be; so the boy shall be pardoned."

"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."

"If you think you can slander a woman into loving you, or a man into voting for you, try it till you are satisfied."

"I learned a great many years ago that in a fight between husband and wife, a third party should never get between the woman's skillet and the man's ax-helve."

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

"We think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this."

"I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free."

"I have talked with great men, and I do not see how they differ from others."

"In so far as the government lands can be disposed of, I am in favor of cutting up the wild lands into parcels so that every poor man may have a home."

"Don't swap horses in crossing a stream."

"Never regret what you don't write."

"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."

"With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die."

"Some day I shall be President."

"These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people; and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel."

"Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed."

"If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business."

"The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed."

"Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."

"Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory."

"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."

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

"I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end... 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."

"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 may be on the Lord's side."

"Biographies, as generally written, are not only misleading but false... In most instances, they commemorate a lie and cheat posterity out of the truth."

"The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every calling, is diligence."

"A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have."

"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."

"As our case is new, we must think and act anew."

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

"Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all."

"How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn't make it a leg."

"Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth."

"Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."

"When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government - that is despotism."

"There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury."

"A private soldier has as much right to justice as a major-general."

"Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be, as the egg is to the fowl; we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it."

"The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions."

"When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees."

"Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them."

"The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly."

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

"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."

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

"Among the friends of Union, there is great diversity of sentiment and of policy in regard to slavery and the African race among us."

"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."