10000+ Motivational and Inspiring Quotes About Life, Love & Success

That our government should have been maintained in its original

form from its establishment until now is not much to be wondered at.

It had many props to support it through that period,

which now are decayed and crumbled away.

Through that period,

it was felt by all to be an undecided experiment; now,

it is understood to be a successful one.

Our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by

all and thought to include all; but now,

to aid in making the bondage of the Negro universal and eternal,

it is assailed, sneered at, construed, hawked at, and torn, till,

if its framers could rise from their graves,

they could not at all recognize it.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature

opposition to it is his love of justice.

These principles are an eternal antagonism;

and when brought into collision so fiercely,

as slavery extension brings them,

shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.

My father... removed from Kentucky to... Indiana,

in my eighth year... It was a wild region,

with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods.

There I grew up... Of course when I came of age,

I did not know much.

Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher...

but that was all.

The legal right of the Southern people to reclaim

their fugitives I have constantly admitted.

The legal right of Congress to interfere with

their institution in the states,

I have constantly denied.

I never went to school more than six months in my life,

but I can say this: that among my earliest recollections,

I remember how,

when a mere child,

I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me

in a way I could not understand.

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

that this nation, under God,

shall have a new birth of freedom

and that government of the people,

by the people, for the people,

shall not perish from the earth.

Four score 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.

The people know their rights,

and they are never slow to assert

and maintain them when they are invaded.

Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine,

should any ever do so,

it is my intention to do all in my power to

make her happy and contented;

and there is nothing I can imagine that would

make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort.

The highest art is always the most religious,

and the greatest artist is always a devout person.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery,

I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

When I am getting ready to reason with a man,

I spend one third of my time thinking about

myself and what I am going to say and two

thirds about him and what he is going to say.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

That I am not a member of any Christian church is true;

but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures,

and I have never spoken with

intentional disrespect of religion in general,

or of any denomination of Christians in particular.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes

liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.

Destroy this spirit and you have planted

the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

Hold on with a bulldog grip,

and chew and choke as much as possible.

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another,

but let him work diligently and build one for himself,

thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe

from violence when built.

No man is good enough to govern another man

without the other's consent.

Public sentiment is everything.

With public sentiment,

nothing can fail.

Without it,

nothing can succeed.