Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) was the 16th president of the United States 1861–65 and one of the great American leaders. The American Civil War dominated his presidency.
Not much is known about the early life of Lincoln. He was born in a log cabin in Hodgenville, Kentucky. His family was poor, and Lincoln lost his mother at nine, completed just one year of traditional schooling, spent his youth in Indiana, and did manual labor until he was 21.
Lincoln pursued self-education by reading books on grammar and rhetoric and joined a debating society. At age 27, after years of private study of law, he obtained a license to practice and eventually became one of Illinois’s ablest lawyers. Lincoln also worked his way through the Illinois State Legislature and got elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He gained popularity for his down-to-earth wit, integrity, and opposition to the institution of slavery.
Lincoln’s leadership during the Civil War held the country together through the worst moral, constitutional, and political crisis in its history. On 9-April-1865, the Confederate general Robert E Lee surrendered and ending the war. It had lasted for more than four years, and 600,000 Americans had died. Six days later, Lincoln was shot while attending a performance at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. and died the next morning. His assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was a strong supporter of the Confederacy.
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is celebrated for its reaffirmation of a founding principle of the United States: that all humans are born equal.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Abraham Lincoln
It is much easier to ride a horse in the direction it’s going.
—Abraham Lincoln
I could as easily bail out the Potomac River with a teaspoon as attend to all the details of the army.
—Abraham Lincoln
Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Attitude, Belief, Determination, Goals
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.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Freedom
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the light I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right—stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Thought, Winning, Truth
It is better, then, to save the work while it is begun. You have done the labor; maintain it, keep it. If men choose to serve you, go with them; but as you have made up your organization upon principle, stand by it; for, as surely as God reigns over you, and has inspired your mind, and given you a sense of propriety, and continues to give you hope, so surely will you still cling to these ideas, and you will at last come back after your wanderings, merely to do your work over again.
—Abraham Lincoln
In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, he the president is the representative of the people. He is elected by them, as well as congress is. But can he, in the nature of things, know the wants of the people, as well as three hundred other men, coming from all the various localities of the nation? If so, where is the propriety of having a congress?
—Abraham Lincoln
Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Time
I know of nothing so pleasant to the mind, as the discovery of anything which is at once new and valuable—nothing which so lightens and sweetens toil, as the hopeful pursuit of such discovery.
—Abraham Lincoln
I have very large ideas of the mineral wealth of our Nation. I believe it practically inexhaustible. It abounds all over the western country, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, and its development has scarcely commenced. Immigration, which even the war has not stopped, will land upon our shores hundred of thousands more per year from overcrowded Europe. I intend to point them to the gold and silver that waits for them in the West. Tell the miners from me, that I shall promote their interests to the utmost of my ability; because their prosperity is the prosperity of the Nation, and we shall prove in a very few years that we are indeed the treasury of the world.
—Abraham Lincoln
When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Thinking, Love, Thoughts, Communication, Thought, Listening
He said that he felt like the boy that stumped his toe, it hurt too bad to laugh, and he was too big to cry.
—Abraham Lincoln
Every blade of grass is a study; and to produce two, where there was but one, is both a profit and a pleasure.
—Abraham Lincoln
He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
—Abraham Lincoln
No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar.
—Abraham Lincoln
You can’t escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Responsibility, Future
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, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
—Abraham Lincoln
I’m a slow walker, but I never walk back.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Integrity, Persistence, Progress, Endurance, Perseverance, Resolve
Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
—Abraham Lincoln
Perhaps a man’s character was like a tree, and his reputation like its shadow; the shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Character, Reality, Virtues, Reputation
The better part of one’s life consists of his friendships.
—Abraham Lincoln
A man watches his pear tree day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe fruit at length falls into his lap.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Life
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.
—Abraham Lincoln
In the early days of the world, the Almighty said to the first of our race In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread; and since then, if we except the light and the air of heaven, no good thing has been, or can be enjoyed by us, without having first cost labour. And inasmuch as most good things are produced by labour, it follows that all such things of right belong to those whose labour has produced them. But it has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have labored, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To secure to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.
—Abraham Lincoln
The fiery trials through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the last generation.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Risk, Adversity, Wealth, Honor, Education, Difficulties
Whatever you are, be a good one.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Greatness & Great Things, Greatness
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Determination, Enthusiasm, Desire, Success & Failure, Dedication, Commitment, Success
Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition… I have no other so great as that of being truely esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Goals, Motivation, Aspirations, Ambition
If the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there, in this view, any assault upon the court, or the judges. It is a duty, from which they may not shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them; and it is no fault of theirs, if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.
—Abraham Lincoln
This extraordinary war in which we are engaged falls heavily upon all classes of people, but the most heavily upon the soldier. For it has been said, all that a man hath will he give for his life; and while all contribute of their substance the soldier puts his life at stake, and often yields it up in his countrys cause. The highest merit, then, is due to the soldier.
—Abraham Lincoln
In this and like communities public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed; consequently he who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes and decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Emotions, Leadership, Leaders, Democracy
I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.
—Abraham Lincoln
The President to-night has a dream:He was in a party of plain people, and, as it became known who he was, they began to comment on his appearance. One of them said:He is a very common-looking man. The President replied:The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason he makes so many of them.
—Abraham Lincoln
All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.
—Abraham Lincoln
He who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.
—Abraham Lincoln
The trouble with too many people is they believe the realm of truth always lies within their vision.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Truth
That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
—Abraham Lincoln
Topics: Success, Achievement
Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
—Abraham Lincoln
As labor is the common burden of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burden onto the shoulders of others is the great durable curse of the race.
—Abraham Lincoln
I am superstitious. I have scarcely known a party, preceding an election, to call in help from the neighboring states, but they lost the state.
—Abraham Lincoln
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