Top 144 Lincoln Quotes

It is therefore not to be wondered at that Lincoln’s single term in the House of Representatives at Washington added practically nothing to his reputation.

Before you give up hope, turn back and read the attacks that were made on Lincoln.

The day will come – and it is not far off – when the legacy of Lincoln will finally be fulfilled at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, when a black man or woman will sit in the Oval Office. When that day comes, the most remarkable thing about it will be how naturally it occurs.

Men like Abraham Lincoln recognized that if the slaveholders were not stopped, it would only be a question of time until they spread their system of elite rule to the entire country. Poor men would be bound for life into menial labor, and American democracy would die.

A lot of acting, as I grew up wanting to do, is kind of like magic… I’m not comparing myself to him in the least bit, but if you knew what Daniel Day-Lewis was doing every step of the way and what he was eating, I don’t think when he popped up as Lincoln we would quite believe it.

Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy shared more than just being leaders during critical times and the misfortune of lives cut short. They shared a power of will to drive the nation, sometimes single-handedly, toward a destination that few but they realized was attainable.

Abraham Lincoln once noted that ‘the ballot is stronger than the bullet.’ Foreign adversaries, who can’t match the military, economic or diplomatic power of the U.S., understand Lincoln’s wisdom. They seek to sow chaos and confusion in our electoral process to gain an advantage over us.

Most fourth graders can’t say why Abraham Lincoln is an important historical figure? Wow. This is far more distressing than if the news had been that fourth graders were bad at reciting multiplication tables, because you can, in fact, Google that.

Hoover himself had risen from the most modest means of any president since Abraham Lincoln. Orphaned as a small boy, he worked his way through Stanford’s ‘pioneer’ class – the first freshmen at Stanford. He started his mining career in hard labor.

When Lincoln ran into trouble during the Civil War, he got new generals. He brought in Grant. I hope that President Obama will bring in some new generals on the financial front.

I really do not like having media moderators. Lincoln and Douglass didn’t have moderators. Let the candidates ask one another questions.

Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, Robert Lincoln bought a nice ski lodge.

I’m not running for the U.S. Senate because I think Lincoln Chafee is a bad man.

If you are an artist, you may live with Lincoln. You sit with him, your coat is spread to keep the snow from the grave of Ann Rutledge; you will walk with Washington through the snow and suffer with him as you note the bloodstained footsteps at Valley Forge.

It was this weird confrontation of these two delicious flavors that got me consciously or subconsciously combining Lincoln and vampires as an observational in-joke with myself.

Hollywood versions of watershed moments in American history are generally high-minded shlock. ‘JFK,’ ‘The People vs. Larry Flynt,’ even ‘Lincoln’: all of these boast excellent performances in scripts that are ultimately very conventional, even conservative.

The Calandra Institute, the Metropolitan Opera Archives, the library at Lincoln Center, and the Fashion Institute of Technology were helpful and key to piecing together what life must have been like at the turn of the last century.

George Washington sets the nation on its democratic path. Abraham Lincoln preserves it. Franklin Roosevelt sees the nation through depression and war.

In the fifties I had dreams about touching a naked woman and she would turn to bronze or the dream about hot dogs chasing donuts through the Lincoln Tunnel.

I did a play called ‘Disgraced’ in 2012 at Lincoln Center, which ultimately won the Pulitzer Prize. I played the lead character, a Muslim American, who had renounced Islam and became very anti-Islam.

With the Lincoln assassination, the South didn’t feel it could mourn along with the North. But Garfield was beloved by all the American people. He was trusted and respected by North and South, by freed slaves and former slave owners. Also by pioneers, which his parents had been, and by immigrants.

President Lincoln chose to fight a bloody and unpopular war because he believed the enemy had to be defeated. He was right.

Mary Lincoln provided Elizabeth Keckley with opportunities for social and economic advancement she probably had never imagined during her years as a slave, while Elizabeth offered Mary the loyal, steadfast friendship she craved but had always found so elusive.

The genius of guys like Lincoln and Reagan and FDR – the great communicator leaders – is that they’re actually educators, so they understand when they use a phrase that they have to explain it, because, by definition, you won’t understand it or they wouldn’t need to be using it.

As long as it served his purpose, Mr. Lincoln boldly advocated the right of Secession.

Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven’t had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln.

I’m not sure Lincoln would fare well if he were a presidential candidate today.

It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency – that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better. There’s no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I’ll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.

I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance.

I used to be on the Lincoln City Council. You learn that there’s never enough money for all of the police officers and fire-fighting apparatus you’d like to have.

A most highly multiplying trait in point of far-reaching influences is that of ability to discover and use strong men. This trait stands out impressively in Rothschild’s ‘Lincoln, Master of Men’.

At the beginning, Lincoln was so inexperienced he had reverence for military expertise, not realizing that there wasn’t any military expertise, that the most anybody had commanded up to that point had been somebody, some troops in the Mexican War, and it had been years ago.

America to me is so varied and exciting. I always feel nostalgia for the place I’m not in, and then I get there and find myself in a traffic jam going into the Lincoln Tunnel, and I think, ‘God, why was I romanticizing this part of the country?’ I think it has to do with the romantic, unrealistic temperament.

In high school, I discovered myself. I was interested in race relations and the legal profession. I read about Lincoln and that he believed the law to be the most difficult of professions.

Pelosi abuses her power in ways that once were unthinkable. Her speakership has been the antithesis of Lincoln’s entreaty to ‘the better angels of our nature.’ Everyone in Congress – and, by extension, the nation – has been sullied by the spite and vitriol she has injected into the political sphere.

Lincoln was the Twain of our politics.

‘Argo,’ ‘Lincoln,’ and ‘Zero Dark Thirty,’ three films honored with Best Picture Oscar nominations, lionize their Washington-anchored protagonists as crafty, competent, and virtually incorruptible.

EMILY’s List members are deeply committed to electing pro-choice Democratic women whom we trust to stand up for our rights, treat us honestly, and make us proud. Our candidates fight for us every day. Blanche Lincoln failed to hold up her end of the bargain.

Lincoln said that the Patent Office adds the flame of interest to the light of creativity. And that is why we need to improve the effectiveness of our Patent Office.

I think, with the gay liberation movement has had need for heroes and heroines, and it would be rather nice to have Abraham Lincoln as your poster boy, wouldn’t it?

Me and a few of my rowdy friends stole the wheels and tires off a brand-new limited-edition Lincoln Mark III that my manager, Merle Kilgore, had just bought. We left it up on blocks and then we sold his own wheels and tires back to him the next day.

Had there not been a Mary Todd, there would not have been an Abraham Lincoln. She found him when he was a young lawyer and really a bumpkin. No one knew of him, but she recognized his brilliance.

When I arrived in Ford, a decision was made to sell many marquee brands. This was because 85 per cent of the sales were from Ford and Lincoln brands. We were clear that for the company’s strong future, we needed to focus on the Ford brands.

Hate cultures are not a thing of the past. They’re a continuing problem and one cannot blame presidencies for this. Racism in the U.S. began way back, before the time of Abraham Lincoln.

I refuse to see losing as a negative. Obama lost in ’83 when he ran against Bobby Rush. Hillary lost in ’08. Even Lincoln lost the first election. It’s a useful learning experience.

There is, of course, only one chosen nation. But Abraham Lincoln would call America ‘an almost chosen nation’ because he believed that America had a providential role to play in history, inspired by the example of God’s ancient covenant people.

If the party of Lincoln wishes to become the party of intolerance, selecting Trump to be its presidential candidate is a good way forward.

Mr. Lincoln’s elevation shows that in America every station in life may be honorable; that there is no barrier against the humblest; but that merit, wherever it exists, has the opportunity to be known.

When I was a child I had a crush on Abraham Lincoln. Why I would choose to reveal this, I know not.

Why should the Eisenhower memorial be over twice the size of WWII Memorial? Why should it be so vast as to comfortably house two Lincoln Memorials, two Washington Monuments, and two Jefferson Memorials – all six at once?

Lincoln prevailed: wearing his green shawl in the White House and gripped with melancholy, his feet constantly cold, he preserved a nation that had begun to unravel, often holding it together with nothing more than the flat of his hand and his unfaltering sense of human worth.

The hardest role that I’ve ever tried to play was Clara Johnson in ‘Light in the Piazza’ at Lincoln Center. It was the least fun I’ve ever had, but the most beautiful experience I’ve ever had. I could not understand her. I could not put my feet in her shoes. I came home every night, and I was depressed.

Out of the west came Lincoln, and all that he had he gave to the preservation of the Union that had been bought so dearly and was falling to pieces.

Jesus and Lincoln, Moses and Jefferson can seem so long gone, so unbelievable, so dead.

Abraham Lincoln spoke out against the Mexican War. But once Americans were under fire, people who were on the fence felt obliged to support it.

Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Then again, he said that before he got shot.

Climate change is analogous to Lincoln and slavery or Churchill and Nazism: it’s not the kind of thing where you can compromise.

I can still remember the first time I heard Tori Amos. It was the fall of 1993, and I was in the back of a colossal ’79 Lincoln Coupe Mark V, embarking on some otherwise forgettable road trip somewhere in the Deep South.

Keeping the Union together, freeing slaves and being assassinated all added up to creating ‘Lincoln the myth.’ He overcame a lot of his own prejudices and became what many would consider the first black man’s president.

Nobody understood better than Mr. Lincoln the obvious truth that in politics it does not suffice merely to nominate candidates. Something must also be done to elect them.

I could not have been happier with ‘The Lincoln Lawyer.’ They got the essence, and the casting, starting with McConaughey, was just perfect.

If the press really thinks Obama is Lincoln, they ought to treat him like they treated Bush, ’cause that’s how they treated Lincoln. His critics compared Lincoln to an ape; they called him an illiterate baboon.

Lincoln’s stature and strength, his intelligence and ambition – in short, all the elements which gave him popularity among men in New Salem, rendered him equally attractive to the fair sex of that village.

We believe slavery was abolished with Abraham Lincoln; unfortunately, human slavery is alive and well.

I am a Republican. I’m loyal to the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. And I believe that my party, in some ways, has strayed from those principles, particularly on the issue of fiscal discipline.

My record shows that I have put my country first, and I follow the philosophy and traditions of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.

Johnny Cash was like Abraham Lincoln to me.

We can build a better, more representative democracy through technology and ensure what Abraham Lincoln called the last, best hope for Earth will endure past the 21st Century.

There was no better end than Lance Alworth and no better lineman than Ron Mix. Those are Hall of Fame guys. There was no better guard than Walt Sweeney and no better pair of running backs than Keith Lincoln and Paul Lowe.

Lincoln did more than any other man to put the stamp of righteousness, to put the stamp of compassion, on the name of America.

See, most films are about achievers. You see a film like ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’ or ‘Dhoni.’ Even ‘Gandhi,’ or the biopic on Lincoln. They end in triumph, on a high.

If there is not the war, you don’t get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don’t get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.

Lincoln merely nominally freed the bodies of Negroes. But Debs would free the bodies and minds of Negroes.

But having said all of that, that still doesn’t account for a lot of the increase in popularity which stems, I think, from Lincoln’s personal characteristics.

Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt faced adversities that, in their times, seemed impregnable. Great presidents overcome great odds.

The post-assassination Lincoln took on a greatly amplified importance to much of the American public, probably the president most deeply reviled in his lifetime and mostly highly regarded after his death.

What I thought we ought to try to do in a book like this is to focus closely on Lincoln, himself, to see what he knew, how he knew it, how he came to make the decisions that he did, and how he implemented them.

In 1860, the Republicans put Lincoln in the White House, and Southerners left the Union. Their absence opened the way for the new party to reshape the national government, from protecting the wealth of propertied men to promoting economic opportunity for everyone.

Lincoln’s removal from New Salem to Springfield and his entrance into a law partnership with Major John T. Stuart begin a distinctively new period in his career.

Why would you not have a robot that looks like Abraham Lincoln? Why would it look like an erector set? Why use a computer with a punchcard, when you could use one with a touch pen on the screen? Why a car, when you could use a jetpack?

Thelonious Monk was one of the musicians I most connected with early on. I’m a huge Betty Carter fan, and the way that Abbey Lincoln and Shirley Horn grew immensely from the time they were young is so inspirational.

The American tradition of Washington and Hamilton and Madison and Lincoln and TR and Pat Buchanan is of economic nationalism – making America an independent, self-sufficient, sovereign forever country that’s able to stand on its own feet.

Abraham Lincoln because he was a man filled with great compassion who believed that all men are created free and equal, and was not afraid to stand on that platform. The way Lincoln lived his life has served me well in mine.

Too few presidents have steeped themselves not just in Lincoln’s words but his deeds, which is why Obama’s acquaintance with the great man is so compelling – especially since, like President-elect Lincoln, Obama will take office at a perilous time.

Abraham Lincoln never denigrated, never scapegoated, never finger-pointed. And he had reason to.

Cummings’ career as a writer – and a painter – was as wobbly as his love life. He tried his hand at playwriting, satirical essays, and even a dance scenario for Lincoln Kirsten.

If the Republican party essentially becomes the white party, it is going to be the death of it, not only for demographic reasons but for reasons of principle. The party of Lincoln is a party of opportunity for everyone. It’s a party about the right to rise, and Mr. Trump unfortunately doesn’t represent that view.

Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

You know, Lincoln was funny. I don’t think F.D.R. was very funny. But Lincoln was funny. Lincoln was really funny. But I think you should get elected first, and then show that you’re funny.

George Saunders’s ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ is a hands-down masterpiece – the subject of Abraham Lincoln and the genius of this author is a perfect union.

The Internet is changing the way we think of our relationship with government; it has the potential to bring to life what Abraham Lincoln said about the presidency being an instrument of the people.

You have to face the fact that I have no reputation as a composer; I have my reputation as a songwriter and a performer-and that opportunity came this summer, when I was invited to perform at the Lincoln Centre festival in New York… three nights.

We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. Founder of the Republican Party.

Lincoln was an American messiah, seemingly sent by God to save our country, our union, and our soul. He prioritized unity above all. Perhaps we should do the same.

Well, it seems to me Lincoln, I suppose, is kind of a model of a particular sort of presidency, a presidency that first of all is elected by a minority of the votes.

For example, a man who might not have enormous charisma, who could be president 40 years ago, and who was a deserving president, I don’t know that George Washington would be a president today, I don’t know that Abe Lincoln would, I don’t know that Roosevelt would.

He used humor more effectively than any president since Abraham Lincoln. Reagan was not an especially warm person, but he appeared to be. Many people disliked his policies, but almost no one disliked him.

Our party was built upon the beliefs of President Abraham Lincoln, who took the significant step to put us on the long path for equality.

My back went out and I gained 40 pounds while sweating over ‘Perestroika.’ It was incredibly hard, the hardest thing I had to do before the screenplay to ‘Lincoln.’

Slavery in New Hampshire was never legally abolished, unless Abraham Lincoln did it. The State itself has not ever pronounced any emancipation edict.

I admire people who have fought for change: Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln. I’m dead serious when I say that – those are my heroes. I also like Ben Affleck.

Obama does seem to have what both FDR and Lincoln had, which is the recognition that you have to hold back at times and then wait to come forward.

Yes, President Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, but a hundred years later, the Republican Party wasn’t Lincoln’s. Richard Nixon became president by courting Americans upset by integration, intentionally fueling the racial divide.

I grew up in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Harden County, which is not too far from the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln.

I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.

I drive a Lincoln Town Car.

I’ve danced since I was 5 and went to the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center at 7.

In 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, a bill opening one half million square miles of territory in the western United States for settlement.

I remember once asking Grandma about a book she was reading, a biography of Abraham Lincoln, and how she answered me: this was the first conversation of my life that concerned a book, and ‘the life of the mind’ – and now, such subjects have become my life.

It has always seemed to me that Barack Obama has studied intensely and learned a great deal from Lincoln.

We forget that the most successful statesmen have been professionals. Lincoln was a professional politician.

Lincoln has been my first love, and as always with first loves, it fixed a standard. So I scaled sunlit heights with Lincoln and produced the colossal marble head in the rotunda of the capitol of the United States.

I heard the Abbey Lincoln song ‘The World is Falling Down,’ and it just resonated with me so deeply.

The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, was put into effect on January 1, 1863, but news of the Proclamation and enforcement did not reach Texas until after the end of the Civil War almost two years later.

In fifth grade, we did 10 minutes on slavery and 40 minutes on Abraham Lincoln, and in 10th grade you might do 10 minutes on the civil rights era and 40 minutes on Martin Luther King, and that’s it.

Let’s assume for the moment that the logic behind Presidents Day is actually sound for certain presidents. Why not have a separate holiday for Lincoln and one for Washington – as we used to do, before we became so concerned with the ‘Every President Gets a Trophy’ ethos?

Words about Lincoln fill a small but ever-growing library.

The value of Eric Foner’s ‘The Fiery Trial’ lies in its comprehensive review of mostly familiar material; in its sensible evaluation of the full range of information already available about Abraham Lincoln and slavery; and in the deft thoroughness of its scholarship.

A great presidential address – Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Truman’s Farewell Address, Kennedy’s Inaugural Address – has the power to inspire.

After high school, I enrolled at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, but I stayed only a year and a half. I felt college was a waste of time; I wanted to start working.

You cannot be President of the United States if you don’t have faith. Remember Lincoln, going to his knees in times of trial in the Civil War and all that stuff.

I am so grateful for my experience at Lincoln Center working to help relocate New York’s largest media event – Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.

I think Lincoln had a unique parenting style. He let his kids run free and wild.

I therefore shared fully the intense chagrin of the New York and other State delegations when, on the third ballot, Abraham Lincoln received a larger vote than Seward.

Abraham Lincoln was killed by the forces of white supremacy.

Lincoln’s leadership is based on a number of precepts, but my favorite one is that he acted in the name, and for the good, of the people.

In the South, there was absence of any leadership corresponding in breadth and courage to that of Abraham Lincoln.

President Abraham Lincoln never lost his ardor for the United States to remain united during the Civil War.

I’ve enjoyed living in New York for the last 10 years, where there’s a real film culture, with the Film Forum and Lincoln Center.

I seem to have no problem revealing my crush on the man who murdered Lincoln.

There are some extremely acceptable male comedians out there: Joel Osteen, Abraham Lincoln, the man who played Phil Spector in HBO’s ‘Phil Spector.’ But even those guys, while insightful and amusing, aren’t exactly funny.

Washington and Lincoln mean as much to us as any two men could mean to a civilization, a people, and age, but I told Mr. Coolidge when he dedicated this monument that this rock is being carved with a monument that will outlive our government.

Libertarians are essentially what the Republicans were 30 years ago. Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan. They’d all fit more under the Libertarian label than the modern day Republican label.

This country owes them all a debt of gratitude. The down payment on that debt is making sure that we live up to Lincoln’s charge: to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.

The name of Abraham Lincoln is imperishable.

I discovered that Robert Todd Lincoln was there for each of the first three assassinations. I wanted to write about the Lincoln Memorial, so when I found out he had attended its dedication, that helped focus it further.

Lincoln is a genius of language and a brilliant writer who deserves to be seen as part of the canon of great writers in American literature.

If Lincoln were alive today, he’d be turning over in his grave.

If Lincoln is among history’s truly great men, he didn’t achieve that stature until his final three years. This was when his long-held antipathy to slavery cohered into a dedicated hostility that gave larger purpose to the Civil War and also confirmed the logic of Lincoln’s destiny.

I dreamed my way into Lincoln and the details that moved me – his lack of education or ‘civilized’ manners and his deep connection to all humankind.

Abe Lincoln is my favorite president of all time – and he pulls off that top hat pretty well.

President Reagan, expanding on President Lincoln’s phrase, referred to America as ‘the last, best hope of man on Earth.’ But this last, best hope is beginning to fade.

It was August 28th, 1963, and the greatest civil rights coalition in modern history had descended upon Washington. Hundreds of thousands of protesters trekked through the heat, stretching from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial.

‘What I would give,’ I thought, ‘to have been present as Elizabeth Keckley measured Mary Lincoln for a new gown, to overhear their conversations on topics significant and ordinary, to observe the Lincoln White House from such an intimate perspective.’