Category: Quote of the Day

Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.”– Remark made when requested to dismiss Montgomery Blair, Postmaster-General, September 1864

War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and its duration, is one of the most terrible.”– Speech at Sanitary Fair, June 16, 1864

We can succeed only by concert. It is not ‘can any of us imagine better?’ but ‘Can we all do better?’”– Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862

We cannot escape history.”– Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862

We dare not disregard the lessons of experience.”– Letter to J. M. Clayton, July 28, 1849

We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed.”– Speech to the One Hundred Sixty-fourth Ohio Regiment, August 22, 1864

We shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.”– Last Public Address, April 11, 1865

What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?”– Cooper Institute Address, February 27, 1860

When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim, that a ‘drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.”– Temperance Address, February 22, 1842

When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government – that is despotism.”– Speech at Peoria, October 16, 1854