"It's good to know that if I behave strangely enough, society will take full responsibility for me."

"I don't understand you. You don't understand me. What else do we have in common?"

"What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself."

"Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets."

"If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it."

"I believe it is universally understood and acknowledged that all men will ever act correctly, unless they have a motive to do otherwise."

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

"I am like a man so busy in letting rooms in one end of his house, that he can't stop to put out the fire that is burning the other."

"I am rather inclined to silence."

"Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, so will this, and this great nation shall continue to prosper as before."

"There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, 'Truth is the daughter of Time.'"

"We can succeed only by concert. It is not, 'Can any of us imagine better,' but, 'Can we all do better?'"

"To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and whatever you hit call it the target."

"My play was a complete success. The audience was a failure."

"Sometimes the most urgent thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest"

"The most exciting place to discover talent is in yourself"

"Maybe I'm lucky to be going so slowly, because I may be going in the wrong direction."

"When you plan a journey from your mind into mine, remember to allow for the time difference"

"Please don't lie to me, unless you're absolutely sure I'll never find out the truth."

"The closest you will ever come in this life to an orderly universe is a good library"

"Be kind to unkind people - they need it the most"

"I waited and waited, and when no message came, I knew it must be from you."

"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."

"I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life."

"By what principle of original right is it that one-fiftieth or one-ninetieth of a great nation, by calling themselves a State, have the right to break up and ruin that nation as a matter of original principle?"

"Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this."

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

"In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and to the young, it comes with bitterest agony because it takes them unawares. I have had experience enough to know what I say."

"If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem."

"Avoid popularity if you would have peace."

"Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong."

"I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance."

"If I like a thing, it just sticks after once reading it or hearing it."

"Gold is good in its place; but loving, brave, patriotic men are better than gold."

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

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

"A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me."

"The point - the power to hurt - of all figures lies in the truthfulness of their application."

"I pass my life in preventing the storm from blowing down the tent, and I drive in the pegs as fast as they are pulled up."

"Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything."

"Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible."

"It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence."

"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."