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You cannot build character and courage by
by Abraham Lincoln

You cannot build character and courage by
taking away a man's initiative and independence.
- Abraham Lincoln

Related topics: Wisdom Freedom Self

Quotes by Abraham Lincoln

Am I not destroying my enemies
when I make friends of them?
- Abraham Lincoln

In great contests, each party claims to act
in accordance with the will of God.
Both may be, and one must be wrong.
- Abraham Lincoln

I don't like that man.
I must get to know him better.
- Abraham Lincoln

I have always found that mercy bears
richer fruits than strict justice.
- Abraham Lincoln

Give me six hours to chop down a tree
and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
- Abraham Lincoln

My great concern is not whether you have failed,
but whether you are content with your failure.
- Abraham Lincoln

That some achieve great success,
is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
- Abraham Lincoln

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

Whatever you are, be a good one.
- Abraham Lincoln

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
- Abraham Lincoln

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed
is more important than any other one thing.
- Abraham Lincoln

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

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

Things may come to those who wait,
but only the things left by those who hustle.
- Abraham Lincoln

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea;
but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
- Abraham Lincoln

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree,
I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax.
- Abraham Lincoln

Every one desires to live long,
but no one would be old.
- Abraham Lincoln

The Lord prefers common-looking people.
That is why he makes so many of them.
- Abraham Lincoln

If there is anything that a man can do well,
I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
- Abraham Lincoln

No matter how much cats fight,
there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
- Abraham Lincoln

How many legs does a dog have
if you call the tail a leg? Four.
Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
- Abraham Lincoln

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell,
it is simply purgatory.
- Abraham Lincoln

The best thing about the future is
that it comes one day at a time.
- Abraham Lincoln

You cannot escape the responsibility
of tomorrow by evading it today.
- Abraham Lincoln

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

When you have got an elephant by the hind legs
and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
- Abraham Lincoln

If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog?
Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg.
- Abraham Lincoln

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

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.
- Abraham Lincoln

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
- Abraham Lincoln

I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me.
They have clung to me all my life.
- Abraham Lincoln

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.
- Abraham Lincoln paraphrasing Lao Tzu' Tao te Ching

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

We should be too big to take offense
and too noble to give it.
- Abraham Lincoln

I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
- Abraham Lincoln

You can fool all the people some of the time,
and some of the people all the time,
but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
- Abraham Lincoln (sometimes attributed to P. T. Barnum)

Everybody likes a compliment.
- Abraham Lincoln

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
- Abraham Lincoln

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.
- Abraham Lincoln

A house divided against itself cannot stand.
- Abraham Lincoln

You have to do your own growing
no matter how tall your grandfather was.
- Abraham Lincoln

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
- Abraham Lincoln

I don't know who my grandfather was;
I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
- Abraham Lincoln

When I do good, I feel good.
When I do bad, I feel bad.
That's my religion.
- Abraham Lincoln

I do not think much of a man who is
not wiser today than he was yesterday.
- Abraham Lincoln

And in the end, it's not
the years in your life that count,
it's the life in your years.
- Abraham Lincoln

Those who deny freedom to others
deserve it not for themselves.
- Abraham Lincoln

A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.
- Abraham Lincoln

I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.
- Abraham Lincoln

He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
- Abraham Lincoln

Towering genius disdains a beaten path.
It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
- Abraham Lincoln

Public sentiment is everything.
With public sentiment, nothing can fail.
Without it, nothing can succeed.
- Abraham Lincoln

I can make more generals, but horses cost money.
- Abraham Lincoln

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.
- Abraham Lincoln

As our case is new, we must think and act anew.
- Abraham Lincoln

It has been my experience that folks who
have no vices, have very few virtues.
- Abraham Lincoln

The best way to get a bad law repealed
is to enforce it strictly.
- Abraham Lincoln

As I would not be a slave,
so I would not be a master.
This expresses my idea of democracy.
- Abraham Lincoln

No man is good enough to govern another man
without that other's consent.
- Abraham Lincoln

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
- Abraham Lincoln

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

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

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.
- Abraham Lincoln

I was losing interest in politics,
when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again.
What I have done since then is pretty well known.
- Abraham Lincoln

Fourscore 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.
- Abraham Lincoln

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.
- Abraham Lincoln

God must love the common man, he made so many of them.
- Abraham Lincoln

These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert,
to fleece the people.
- Abraham Lincoln

I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.
- Abraham Lincoln

These men ask for just the same thing,
fairness, and fairness only.
This, so far as in my power,
they, and all others, shall have.
- Abraham Lincoln

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Today is Your Day to Dance Lightly with Life.  It Really Is.
      - Jonathan Lockwood Huie