The Lincoln Year Book: Axioms and Aphorisms from the Great Emancipator

JANUARY

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

Always do the very best you can.

If our sense of duty forbids, then let us stand by our sense of duty.

It's no use to be always looking up these hard spots.

All I am in the world, I owe to the opinion of me which the people express when they call me "Honest Old Abe."

The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody is hindering him.

No one has needed favors more than I.

Whatever is calculated to improve the condition of the honest, struggling laboring man, I am for that thing.

All we want is time and patience.

I esteem foreigners as no better than other people – nor any worse.

My experience and observation have been that those who promise the most do the least.

I didn't know anything about it, but I thought you knew your own business best.

If I send a man to buy a horse for me, I expect him to tell me his points – not how many hairs there are in his tail.

You must act.

I will try, and do the best I can.

His attitude is such that, in the very selfishness of his nature, he can not but work to be successful!

Afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.

I want Christians to pray for me; I need their prayers.

The young men must not be permitted to drift away.

The free institutions we enjoy have developed the powers and improved the condition of the whole people beyond any example in the world.

I shall do nothing in malice.

Good men do not agree.

I shall, to the best of my ability, repel force by force.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets.

I never thought he had more than average ability when we were young men together. But, then, I suppose he thought just the same about me.

Moral cowardice is something which I think I never had.

The patriotic instinct of plain people.

The face of an old friend is like a ray of sunshine through dark and gloomy clouds.

Will anybody do your work for you?

My rightful masters, the American people.

Should any one in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?

The value of life is to improve one's condition.

FEBRUARY

Let none falter who thinks he is right, and we may succeed.

Labor is like any other commodity in the market – increase the demand for it and you increase the price of it.

When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.

I say "try," for if we never try, we never succeed.

The pioneer in any movement is not generally the best man to bring that movement to a successful issue.

Defeat and failure make everything seem wrong.

This nation cannot live on injustice.

Something had to be done, and, as there does not appear to be any one else to do it, I did it.

Poor parsons seem always to have large families.

If it be true that the Lord has appointed me to do the work you have indicated, is it not probable that he would have communicated knowledge of the fact to me as well as to you?

I trust I shall be willing to do my duty, though it costs my life.

I hope peace will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time.

What there is of me is self-made.

I was young once, and I am sure I was never ungenerously thrust back.

Thank God for not making me a woman, but if He had, I suppose He would have made me just as ugly as He did, and no one would ever have tempted me.

You may say anything you like about me, – if that will help.

No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty – none less inclined to take, or touch, aught which they have not honestly earned.

As our case is new, so we must think anew.

I shall do less whenever I believe what I am doing hurts the cause; and I shall do more whenever I believe doing more helps the cause.

No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.

If I can learn God's will, I will do it.

It is the nature of the case, and no one is to blame.

Tell the whole truth.

He sticks through thick and thin, – I admire such a man.

If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution, – certainly would if such right were a vital one.

My hand was tired; but my resolution was firm.

It is a difficult role, and so much the greater will be the honor if you perform it well.

I shall write my papers myself. The people will understand them.

Though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill-temper.

Have confidence in yourself, a valuable if not indispensable quality.

MARCH

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.

Twenty thousand is as much as any man ought to want.

By general law, life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never given merely to save a limb.

Trust to the good sense of the American people.

Let us judge not, that we be not judged.

Put the foot down firmly.

The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion.

I bring a heart true to the work.

The people will save their government, if the government itself will do its part only indifferently well.

Most certainly I intend no injustice to any one, and if I have done any I deeply regret it.

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

Action in the crisis of a nation must accord with its necessities, and therefore can seldom be confined to precedent.

You can't put a long sword in a short scabbard.

"I have made it a rule of my life," said the old parson, "not to cross Fox River until I get to it."

It is sometimes well to be humble.

Don't let joy carry you into excesses.

Liberty is your birthright.

If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or government will cease.

Learn the laws and obey them.

It is easy to conceive that all these shades of opinion, and even more, may be sincerely entertained by honest and truthful men.

It is better only sometimes to be right than at all times wrong.

When you have an elephant on hand, and he wants to run away, better let him run.

Whatever God designs, He will do for me yet.

Quarrel not at all.

Let no opportunity of making a mark escape.

I want in all cases to do right; and most particularly so in all cases with women.

I should rejoice to be spared the labor of a contest, but being in I shall go it thoroughly.

I intend discourtesy to no one.

The doctrine of self-government is right – absolutely and eternally right.

This government is expressly charged with the duty of providing for the general welfare.

We are not bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so would be to reject all progress, all improvement.

Understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them.

APRIL

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause which we deem to be just.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

He has abundant talents – quite enough to occupy all his time without devoting any to temper.

I do not argue – I beseech you to make the argument for yourself.

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