• America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
• Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
• There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
• My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. 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 save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
• We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.
• I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races: that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.
• I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.
• Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
• As President, I have no eyes but constitutional eyes; I cannot see you.
• Let the people know the truth and the country is safe.
• Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
• I am not in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office.
• War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.
• I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has.
• You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm.
• I have stepped out upon this platform that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement I have the best of the bargain.
• I can make more generals, but horses cost money.
• Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.
• There is really no crisis except an artificial one…If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the trouble will come to an end.
• It is not merely for to-day, but for all time to come that we should perpetuate for our children's children this great and free government, which we have enjoyed all our lives.
• The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. We cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honour or dishonour, to the last generation. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, our last best hope of Earth.
• The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here so nobly advanced.
• Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose – and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
• Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.
