Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.

— Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln, Douglas and their contemporaries struggled to decide what the words “all men are created equal” really meant. Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln wrangled for 21 hours on seven stages. They made strategic choices and battled to gain support for different views of the future. Their powerful words changed and restricted each other. Lincoln and Douglas didn’t have answers; they had strong arguments.

— Georgiann Baldino

Lincoln grew immeasurably as he came to think of himself as an “instrument of God’s will.

— Joe L. Wheeler

Man’s glory lies not, Lincoln thought, in ‘his goodness,’ for this is often nonexistent. He derives glory, instead, from his being made in the image of the Living God.

— Joe L. Wheeler

My dear Sir. Yours of the 13th. Is just received. My engagements are such that I can not, at any very early day, visit Rock-Island, to deliver a lecture, or for any other object. As to the other matter you kindly mention, I must, in candor, say I do not think myself fit for the Presidency. I certainly am flattered, and gratified, that some partial friends think of me in that connection; but I really think it's best for our cause that no concerted effort, such as you suggest, should be made. Let this be considered confidential. Yours very truly, {Abraham Lincoln}

— Abraham Lincoln

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar

— Abraham Lincoln

That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.

— Abraham Lincoln

The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.

— Abraham Lincoln

The bottom half of the page had descended into a doodle of a tiny man giving the middle finger to a giant, angry eagle with razor-sharp talons. Beneath it, the caption: To Mock a Killing Bird.

— Seth Grahame-Smith

The democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing when in conflict with another man's right of property... This is a world of compensations; and he would -be- no slave must consent to -have- no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it. All honor to Jefferson - to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression. Your obedient Servant, [Abraham Lincoln]April 6, 1859, in a letter to MA State Rep Henry L. Pierce Springfield, Ill.

— Abraham Lincoln