Category: Quote of the Day

In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares.”– Letter to Fanny McCullough, December 23, 1862

In this age, and in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces judicial decisions. He makes possible the enforcement of them, else impossible.”– Notes for Speeches, circa October 1858

In the untimely loss of your noble son, our affliction here, is scarcely less than your own. So much of promised usefulness to one’s country, and of bright hopes for one’s self and friends, have rarely been so suddenly dashed, as in his fall.”– Letter to Ephraim D. and Phoebe Ellsworth May 25, 1861

In leaving the people’s business in their own hands, we cannot be wrong.– Speech in Congress, July 27,1848

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.”– Message to Congress, December 1, 1862

Important principles may and must be inflexible.”– Last Public Address, April 11, 1865

If you intend to go to work, there is no better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to go to work, you can not get along anywhere.”– Letter to John D. Johnston, November 4, 1851

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to it.”– Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858

If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature.”– Speech in Chicago, July 10, 1858

If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own, that things is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions.” – Speech at Peoria, October 16, 1854