Zitat des Tages von Abraham Lincoln:
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
I believe it is universally understood and acknowledged that all men will ever act correctly, unless they have a motive to do otherwise.
The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
I am rather inclined to silence.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
We think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this.
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.
If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
Some day I shall be President.
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.
Biographies, as generally written, are not only misleading but false... In most instances, they commemorate a lie and cheat posterity out of the truth.
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Whatever you are, be a good one.
Never regret what you don't write.
The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every calling, is diligence.
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.
I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
I think that slavery is wrong, morally, socially and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.
The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.
I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon Washington. Unless the great God, who assisted him, shall be with me and aid me, I must fail; but if the same omniscient mind and almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me, I shall not fail - I shall succeed.
There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, 'Truth is the daughter of Time.'
I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
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. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
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.
What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
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.
Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
In so far as the government lands can be disposed of, I am in favor of cutting up the wild lands into parcels so that every poor man may have a home.
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.