“Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.”
“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
“My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.”
“If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”
“If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.”
“If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.”
“Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.”
“Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
“A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.”
“All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother.”
“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”
“Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.”
“Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.”
“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.”
“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.”
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
“If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.”
“Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.”
“Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.”
“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
“I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.”
“I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end... I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.”
“I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.”
“I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”
“I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”
“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
“God must love the common man, he made so many of them.”
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.”
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.”
“Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
“Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.”
“Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.”
“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”
“A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.”
“As our case is new, we must think and act anew.”
“Avoid popularity if you would have peace.”
“Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.”
“Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.”
“Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”
“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.”
“He who molds the public sentiment... makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.”
“I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”
“I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.”
“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.”
“I will prepare and some day my chance will come.”
“All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.”