I am for . . . each individual doing just as he chooses in all matters which concern nobody else..

If at any time all labour should cease, and all existing provisions be equally divided among the people, at the end of a single year there could scar….

Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it..

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..

The better part of one's life consists of his friendships..

Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere long, must be done again..

One's only security in life comes from doing something uncommonly well..

I certainly know that if the war fails, the administration fails, and that I will be blamed for it, whether I deserve it or not. And I ought to be bl….

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly es….

I never did ask more, nor ever was willing to accept less, than for all the States, and the people thereof, to take and hold their places, and their ….

Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it..

The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land..

Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the obje….

no man who is resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention, still less can he afford to take the consequences, includi….

I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the ….

I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that the working men are the basis of all governments, for the plain reason that they are the more numerous, and as y….

Committee: A group which succeeds in getting something done only when it consists of three members, one of whom happens to be sick and another absent..

Labor is the true standard of value..

The petition of persons under eighteen, praying that I would free all slave children, and the heading of which petition it appears you wrote, was han….

As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin it now?.

You are young, and I am older; You are hopeful, I am not- Enjoy life, ere it grow colder- Pluck the roses ere they rot..