“Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.”
“I dream of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.”
“The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.”
“When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.”
“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”
“The fiery trials through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.”
“If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.”
“Tell me what brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals.”
“Must a government be too strong for the liberties of its people or too weak to maintain its own existence?”
“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.”
“Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we understand it.”
“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.”
“Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
“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.”
“The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.”
“That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.”
“A house divided against itself cannot stand -- I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.”
“The way for a young man to rise, is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that any body wishes to hinder him.”
“The sense of obligation to continue is present in all of us. A duty to strive is the duty of us all. I felt a call to that duty.”
“It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.”
“Friends, I agree with you in Providence; but I believe in the Providence of the most men, the largest purse, and the longest cannon.”
“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.”
“You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.”
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work ;we are in.”
“Having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.”
“You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.”
“Die when I may, 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.”
“All that I am or hope to be I owe to my angel mother. I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”
“The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts.”
“Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes.”