Abraham Lincoln Civil Quotations

If there is a worse place than Hell, I am in it.

I failed, I failed, and that is about all that can be said about it.

It's bad. It's damned bad.

The trouble with Hooker is that he's got his headquarters where his hindquarters aught to be.

You are green, it is true; but they are green also. You are all green alike.

I can make brigadier generals, but i can't make horses.

He has got the slows, Mr. Blair.

The Lord spared the fitten and the rest he seen fitten to die.

Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time.

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling.

One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended.

You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.

The Cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one, or even one hundred defeats.

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

If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.

The legalized liquor business is the tragedy of our civilization. Alcohol is the greatest and most blighting curse of our modern civilization. The liquor seller is simply and only a privileged malefactor - a criminal.

We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.

God can not be for, and against the same thing at the same time.

My God! My God! What will the country say?

Care for him who shall have borne the battle

The Almighty has His own purposes.

As President, I have no eyes but constitutional eyes; I cannot see you.

I believe this Government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that. I have here stated my purpose according to my official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's 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.

Offering thanks in the midst of tragedy is an American tradition, . even during a bloody Civil War.

the better angels of our nature

There has never been but one question in all civilization-how to keep a few men from saying to many men: You work and earn bread and we will eat it.

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.

Every man has a right to be equal with every other man.

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing....

Bring me Longstreet's head on a platter and the war will be over

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.

In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong.

I am greatly obliged to you, and to all who have come forward at the call of their country.

To correct the evils, great and small, which spring from want of sympathy and from positive enmity among strangers, as nations or as individuals, is one of the highest functions of civilization.

Let us strive on to finish the work we are in.

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.

With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.

If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.

It is rather for us here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.