We must believe that He permits it [this war] for some wise purpose of his own, mysterious and unknown to us; and though with ourlimited understandings we may not be able to comprehend it, yet we cannot but believe, that he who made the world still governs it.
Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it.
I am absent altogether too much to be a suitable instructor for a law-student. When a man has reached the age that Mr. Widner has,and has already been doing for himself, my judgment is, that he reads the books for himself without an instructor. That is precisely the way I came to the law.
In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak, and as strong; as silly and as wise; asbad and good.
A right result, at this time, will be worth more to the world, than ten times the men, and ten times the money.
If I had my way, this war would never have been commenced. If I had been allowed my way this war would have been ended before this.
In using the strong hand, as now compelled to do, the government has a difficult duty to perform. At the very best, it will by turns do both too little and too much. It can properly have no motive of revenge, no purpose to punish merely for punishment's sake. While we must, by all available means, prevent the overthrow of the government, we should avoid planting and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of society.
I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other class is mistaken in that belief, and perhaps in some respects both.
Your rights end where my nose begins.
To lead, you must touch men's hearts.
Everybody likes compliment.
Do you think we choose the times into which we are born? Or do we fit the times we are born into?
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.
As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.
Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man. (When a skeptic expressed surprise to see him reading a Bible)
With educated people, I suppose, punctuation is a matter of rule; with me it is a matter of feeling. But I must say I have a great respect for the semicolin; it's a useful little chap
Whether you look for the good or look for the bad in a person, you'll find it." A. Lincoln
If they do kill me, I shall never die another death.
Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much.
You can not fail in any laudable object, unless you allow your mind to be improperly directed.
Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political evil, having due regard for its actual existence amongst us and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it; but, nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a wrong it may come to an end.
I think that one of the causes of these repeated failures is that our best and greatest men have greatly underestimated the size of this question (slavery). They have constantly brought forward small cures for great sores-plasters too small to cover the wound. That is one reason that all settlements have proved so temporary-so evanescent.
I did say, at Chicago, in my speech there, that I do wish to see the spread of slavery arrested and to see it placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction.
I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free states, due to the Union of the states, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though it may seem) to let the slavery of the other states alone; while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally clear, that we should never knowingly lend ourselves directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death--to find new places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the old.
Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue.
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