Top 100 Lincoln's Quotes
#1. The nation was founded and "dedicated," to use Lincoln's language in the "Gettysburg Address," to equality as a "self-evident truth." But this very principle of equality, as Lincoln also noted, was a "proposition." To make it a reality remained "the unfinished work" of Americans.
Ronald Takaki
#2. I am a Ford, not a Lincoln. My addresses will never be as eloquent as Mr. Lincoln's. But I will do my very best to equal his brevity and his plain speaking.
Gerald R. Ford
#3. Stephen Douglas's oratory was designed for the galleries, Lincoln's for his peers
Harold Holzer
#4. Lincoln's significance lies in his not hesitating before the most severe means, once they were found to be necessary, in achieving a great historic aim posed by the development of a young nation.
Leon Trotsky
#5. Lincoln's stature and strength, his intelligence and ambition - in short, all the elements which gave him popularity among men in New Salem, rendered him equally attractive to the fair sex of that village.
John George Nicolay
#6. In a thousand words I can have the Lord's Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, the Hippocratic Oath, a sonnet by Shakespeare, the Preamble to the Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and almost all of the Boy Scout Oath. Now exactly what picture were you planning to trade for all that?
Roy H. Williams
#7. I see some parallels between then [Lincoln's era] and now. Certainly the division of ideologies between two parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. In 1865, the Democrats were the Conservatives and the Republicans were the progressives, and today it's just the opposite.
Steven Spielberg
#8. Lincoln's leadership is based on a number of precepts, but my favorite one is that he acted in the name, and for the good, of the people.
Steven Spielberg
#9. Beth's fingers trembled in his hair, and her forehead dropped against his. A heavy, wet tear fell onto Lincoln's lips, and he licked it. He pulled her close, as close as he could. Like he didn't care for the moment whether she could breathe. Like there were two of them and only one parachute.
Rainbow Rowell
#10. Still, when Fern fell asleep on Preston's shoulder during the reenactment of Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theatre, Sam almost lost his lunch, even though they hadn't had lunch yet.
Jennifer Anne Kogler
#11. There was nothing in all Douglas's powerful effort that appealed to the higher instincts of human nature, while Lincoln always touched sympathetic cords. Lincoln's speech excited and sustained the enthusiasm of his audience to the end.
Henry Villard
#12. You know Lincoln's famous remark about "God must have loved the common people, because he made so many of them?" Well, you are not going to get people's votes nowadays by calling 'em common. Lincoln might have said it, but I bet it was not until after he was elected.
Will Rogers
#13. The secession of the Southern States, individually or in the aggregate, was the certain consequence of Mr. Lincoln's election.
Belle Boyd
#14. Huh. Programming. Debugging. It wasn't Lincoln's favorite, but it beat archiving and compressing. At least it was a problem to solve. And it would only be for a few months, maybe less.
Rainbow Rowell
#15. Mr. Lincoln's elevation shows that in America every station in life may be honorable; that there is no barrier against the humblest; but that merit, wherever it exists, has the opportunity to be known.
Matthew Simpson
#16. The author describes Lincoln's attitude in making a deal with a newspaper publisher as, "almost defiant transparency.
Harold Holzer
#17. The darkest day of my life was the day I heard of Lincoln's assassination. I did not know what it meant. Here was the rebellion put down in the field, and starting up in the gutters...
Ulysses S. Grant
#18. It is therefore not to be wondered at that Lincoln's single term in the House of Representatives at Washington added practically nothing to his reputation.
John George Nicolay
#19. Color faded into Lincoln's cheeks.
S.M. Reine
#20. What did The Battle Hymn of the Republic and Uncle Tom's Cabin and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and all that have to do with our present enthusiasm for women's rights? Not that much, really. Women just got lucky this time.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
#21. Words of encouragement fan the spark of genius into the flame of achievement. Legend tells us that Lincoln's dying mother called her small son to her bedside and whispered, 'Be somebody, Abe'.
Wilferd Peterson
#22. What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.
[Lincoln's maxim and philosophy]
Abraham Lincoln
#23. One of Lincoln's intimates as a presidential candidate urged him to make no promises and not to part with those kind words which could be interpreted as promises.
Harold Holzer
#24. In Lincoln's day a President's religion was a very private affair. There were no public prayer meetings, no attempts to woo the Religious Right. Few of Lincoln's countrymen knew anything at all of his religious beliefs.
David Herbert Donald
#25. My feeling about him is that the America that we have today, the freedoms we enjoy and the privileges we have, are really the reflection of Abe Lincoln's convictions, his vision, and his toughness.
Gregory Peck
#26. But having said all of that, that still doesn't account for a lot of the increase in popularity which stems, I think, from Lincoln's personal characteristics.
David Herbert Donald
#28. I was able to sit at Lincoln's side and see how he thought and how he acted, and how he felt about what was going on around him. I felt the pressures that were on him. You can see what people were writing to him, how they were nudging him.
David Herbert Donald
#29. A major element in Lincoln's greatness was the way in which he could hold a strong moral position without the usual accompaniment of self-righteousness.
Elton Trueblood
#30. When Lincoln was asked if God was on the Union's side, Lincoln's unvarying response was that what was really important was whether they were on God's side.
Joe L. Wheeler
#31. The general consensus among historians, among the ones who can handle the fact that 'Lincoln' is, in fact, historical fiction, is that we demonstrate enormous fidelity to history and that, beyond that, we've actually contributed a line of thinking about Lincoln's presidency that's somewhat original.
Tony Kushner
#32. We are watching industries crumble, Wall Street firms disappear, unemployment spike, and unprecedented government intervention. And our designated opinion leaders want to know: Is Obama up this week? Is he down? And is his leadership style more like Bill Clinton's, or Abraham Lincoln's?
Thomas Frank
#33. Lincoln's heartbeat picked up a little, the way it always did when he rounded that last bend in the road and saw home waiting up ahead.
Home.
Linda Lael Miller
#34. Only a crazy man would write a novel in Lincoln's voice.
Jerome Charyn
#35. Some have deplored Lincoln's indifference to Christianity. But it was not religion, it was religiosity that put him off.
Gore Vidal
#36. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, given November 19, 1863 on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA
Abraham Lincoln
#37. Lincoln's eyes travel over my body, his gaze lingering on my curves. "I think I'm falling in love."
Katie McGarry
#38. Today, many people not only take the self for granted but struggle mightily to connect it to anything larger. In Lincoln's time, the idea of the self had the power - tinged with uncertainty, even with danger - of something emerging and ascending.
Joshua Wolf Shenk
#40. Lincoln's ability to retain his emotional balance in such difficult situations was rooted in actute self-awareness and an enormous capacity to dispel anxiety in constructive ways.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
#41. The sound of his stable, strong heart soothing. She let her eyes close, and though her heart was torn and possibly irreparable, like Lincoln's, with the two ruined pieces there was one whole heart.
Lindy Zart
#42. His (Lincoln's) patriotism was saved from idolatry by the overwhelming sense of the sovereignty of God.
Elton Trueblood
#43. Mr. Lincoln's maxim and philosophy were: 'What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.' He never joined any Church. He was a religious man always, I think, but was not a technical Christian.
Mary Todd Lincoln
#44. Put down your guns and go home. Let's rebuild the nation together. This was President Lincoln's vision, to which Grant subscribed.
Bill O'Reilly
#46. Right after the Civil War there was considerable talk about reviving Lincoln's brief experiment with the Constitutional monetary system. Had not the European money-trust intervened, it would have no doubt become an established institution.
W. Cleon Skousen
#47. Lincoln's reference to government of the people, by the people, for the people is a generally satisfactory definition of democracy. I say generally because when it comes to fair and workable details, democracy fails to completely meet the criteria enunciated by Lincoln by a rather wide margin.
George Aiken
#48. Lincoln's removal from New Salem to Springfield and his entrance into a law partnership with Major John T. Stuart begin a distinctively new period in his career.
John George Nicolay
#49. An elderly black man stepped forward and prayed aloud for Lincoln's safety. Much to Coffin's surprise, the President "lifted his own hat from his head and bowed to the old man."24
Noah Andre Trudeau
#50. Unless there comes to the Nation a greater emancipation than Lincoln's Proclamation effected, it is doomed, it is bound to go down.
Francis James Grimke
#51. The problem is that we tend too often to read Lincoln's growth backward, as an unproblematic trajectory toward a predetermined end. This enables scholars to ignore or downplay aspects of Lincoln's beliefs with which they are uncomfortable.
Eric Foner
#52. The glory that was Lincoln's never died when he was slain.
Phil Ochs
#53. This was supposedly an Honors American History class, for seniors only. What deep, dark secrets of American History needed to be kept from younger minds? Were they going to talk about Washington's VD? Lincoln's warts? Roosevelt's hemorrhoids?
Melodie Starkey
#54. The eternal link between Lincoln's life and Passover - the fact that Lincoln's death, marked in the Hebrew calendar, coincides with Passover every year - is certainly fitting, and perhaps even part of the providence that Lincoln began to see in his own life and the life of his nation.
Meir Soloveichik
#55. It turned out in the long run that Lincoln's credit and the popular confidence that supported it were as valuable both to his creditors and himself as if the sums which stood over his signature had been gold coin in a solvent bank.
John George Nicolay
#56. In March 1861 alone - Lincoln's first month in office - the U.S. Senate would receive for its advice and consent some sixty pages of names submitted for civilian and military appointments ranging from secretary of state to surveyor-general of Minnesota.
Harold Holzer
#58. One of the things that you learn, having been in this [President's] office for four years, is the old adage of Abraham Lincoln's. That with public opinion there's nothing you can't do and without public opinion there's very little you can get done.
Barack Obama
#59. It was difficult to find my way into 'I Am Abraham,' to feel confident enough to inhabit Lincoln's persona. I began with a prologue in a neutral voice, wrote of Lincoln at the White House with a sly young reporter quizzing him about his humble origins.
Jerome Charyn
#60. The key to Lincoln's famous employment of humor is not that he failed to appreciate the tragic aspects of human existence, but rather that he felt these with such keeness that some relief was required.
Elton Trueblood
#61. Nothing that Shakespeare ever invented was to equal Lincoln's invention of himself and, in the process, us.
Gore Vidal
#62. If I didn't have Lincoln's butt to stare at the whole time, motivation would be a lot harder to come by.
Jessica Shirvington
#63. If an honest man is the noblest work of God, then Mr. Lincoln's title to high nobility is clear and unquestioned.
Matthew Simpson
#64. I will make a prophecy that may now sound peculiar. In fifty years Lincoln's name will be inscribed close to Washington's on this Republic's roll of honor.
Carl Schurz
#65. To Lincoln's mind, the fundamental test of a democracy was its capacity to elevate the condition of men, to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
#66. If Lincoln's primary goal in the War was not the abolition of slavery but simply to preserve the Union, the question arises: Why did the Union need preserving? Or, more pointedly, why did the Southern states want to secede?
G. Edward Griffin
#67. I believe in monstrosities, and 'I Am Abraham' is a monstrosity of sorts, raveling out moment by moment with its contrapuntal songs, as if a band of musicians were at play, all of them with Lincoln's beard and disturbing grey eyes.
Jerome Charyn
#68. President Reagan, expanding on President Lincoln's phrase, referred to America as 'the last, best hope of man on Earth.' But this last, best hope is beginning to fade.
Edwin Meese
#69. Lincoln's so efficient, especially for a guy who "bends rules".
Katie McGarry
#70. This country owes them all a debt of gratitude. The down payment on that debt is making sure that we live up to Lincoln's charge: to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.
Dave Obey
#71. The next time we are tempted to admonish somebody, let's pull a five-dollar bill out of our pocket, look at Lincoln's picture on the bill, and ask, "How would Lincoln handle this problem if he had it?
Dale Carnegie
#72. Jeff Davis's name they'll proudly praise, ah ha, ah ha And Lincoln's tomb will be disgraced, ah ha, ah ha The nation's flag will lose its stars The stripes they'll change to rebel bars And we'll all wear gray if the Johnnies get into power
Sarah Vowell
#73. In Lincoln's mind, at least as Lamon interpreted the story, "the illusion was a sign." Both the president-elect and his wife believed it meant he would not only survive his term in office, but four years later win reelection to a second one, only to die before it ended.
Harold Holzer
#74. You can drink out of Lincoln's nose. They got the Hard Rock t-shirts. They got Elvis, too.
Suzy Bogguss
#75. Became postmaster general, and Edwin M. Stanton, Lincoln's "Mars," eventually became secretary
Doris Kearns Goodwin
#76. If Lincoln is among history's truly great men, he didn't achieve that stature until his final three years. This was when his long-held antipathy to slavery cohered into a dedicated hostility that gave larger purpose to the Civil War and also confirmed the logic of Lincoln's destiny.
Steve Erickson
#77. Managers thinking about accounting issues should never forget one of Abraham Lincoln's favorite riddles: How many legs does a dog have, if you call a tail a leg? The answer: Four, because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
Warren Buffett
#79. The path was worn and slippery. My foot slipped from under me, knocking the other out of the way, but I recovered and said to myself, "It's a slip and not a fall.
Abraham Lincoln
#80. Oh, that [his Thanksgiving Message] is some of Seward's nonsense, and it pleases the fools.
Abraham Lincoln
#81. The 1850s proved to be the decade of the most prolific patent litigation in America's history. Lincoln himself was involved, as well as his most three prolific cabinet members: Chase, Seward and Stanton.
Darin Gibby
#83. There's as much crookedness as you want to find. There was something Abraham Lincoln said - he'd rather trust and be disappointed than distrust and be miserable all the time. Maybe I trusted too much.
John Wooden
#84. I think it's wrong, ladies and gentlemen, for anybody to to be terrorized out of investigating anything. You have the right to read any book. You have the right to hear any speaker and that includes the vile communist that I'd just as soon gas - but you ought to hear him before we gas him.
George Lincoln Rockwell
#85. Talk to the jury as though your client's fate depends on every word you utter.
Abraham Lincoln
#86. Linc?"
"Yeah."
"About the other thing my dad said to you," I cringed.
"What else is he supposed to think?" he asked, a smile in his tone. "You're over here all the time. If not training, we're hanging out. I'm surprised he hasn't warned me off sooner. It's good to see he's paying attention.
Jessica Shirvington
#87. Keeping the Union together, freeing slaves and being assassinated all added up to creating 'Lincoln the myth.' He overcame a lot of his own prejudices and became what many would consider the first black man's president.
Henry Louis Gates
#88. We have inherited a great music. This music is a holdover. It comes with us like the skin, the texture of our hair. It's our memory banks.
Abbey Lincoln
#89. There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
Abraham Lincoln
#90. Good thinking," he replied. "There's a town I remember being about 10 miles before Lincoln, where we turn off to head for the ski lodge, Compton or Campton, something like that. We can find a place to hide the truck there." "Campton,
Scott Medbury
#91. We trust, sir, that God is on our side. It is more important to know that we are on God's side.
Abraham Lincoln
#92. Dictatorship played a decisive role in the North's successful effort to maintain the Union by force of arms ... one man was the government of the United States ... Lincoln was a great dictator ... This great constitutional dictator was self appointed.
Clinton Rossiter
#93. 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.
Abraham Lincoln
#94. The elevator jolted and came to a halt. Caught off balance, Hannah stumbled into him. Lincoln caught her, and her cheeks filled with color. "Hmm." Mr. Welch rubbed his beard. "Looks like she's warming up to you already, Mr. Cole.
Lorna Seilstad
#95. There's not much to any of us once you take out all the water. How much is left in a person, do you think?" She waited for an answer. "Probably less than a two-liter," Lincoln said, still feeling like it would be rude to act as if this was anything other than normal conversation.
Rainbow Rowell
#96. I do not boast that God is on my side, I humbly pray that I am on God's side.
Abraham Lincoln
#97. Give us a man of God's own mould
Born to marshall his fellow-men;
One whose fame is not bought and sold
At the stroke of a politician's pen.
Give us the man of thousands ten,
Fit to do as well as to plan;
Give us a rallying-cry, and then
Abraham Lincoln, give us a Man.
Edmund Clarence Stedman
#98. The next night, Lincoln parked his Corolla right next to The Courier's front door. I'm here, he thought. Find me. Follow me. Make this inevitable.
Rainbow Rowell
#99. After his failed political career, Lincoln often pondered the question of the purpose of the meaning of life. In 1850 [ten years before he was elected President], Lincoln told Herdon [his law partner] How hard, oh how hard it is to die and leave one's country no better than if one had never lived.
Ronald C. White Jr.
#100. We wasted little time wondering how anyone, even Lizzie, could nurse for five years a smoldering, mounting, murderous hate for anyone as uninteresting as Abby Borden ... we did, however, attach grave importance to Lizzie's 'peculiar spells.
Victoria Lincoln
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