Quotable Lincoln

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt

Discourage Litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.

Force is all conquering, but its victories are short lived.

He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.

You may decieve all of the people part of the time, and part of the people all of the time, but not all the people all the time.

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts.

I will prepare and someday my chance will come.

If I were two faced, would I be wearing this one?

If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.

It has been my experience that folds who have no vices have very few virtues.

It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.

Let me not be understood as saying that there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. Although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed, still, while they continue in force, they should be religiously observed.

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

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

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

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

Whatever you are, be a good one.

When you have got an elephant by the gind leg, and he is trying to run away, it’s best to let him run.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

All that I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother.

All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow.

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

As our case is new, we must think and act anew.

Avoid popularity if you would have peace.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

Character is like a tree and reputation is like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.

Let every American, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others.

In law it is a good policy to never plead what you need not, lest you oblige yourself to prove what you can not.

The leading rule for the lawyer is diligence. Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.

Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this. Who can be more nearly a fiend than he who habitually overhauls the register of deeds in search of defects in titles?

Resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer