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

TWELFTH

Among freemen there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet.

THIRTEENTH

I have done all I could for the good of mankind.

FOURTEENTH

It is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side.

FIFTEENTH

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

SIXTEENTH

What will the country say?

SEVENTEENTH

Mediocrity is sure of detection.

EIGHTEENTH

Washington was a happy man, because he was engaged in benefiting his race.

NINETEENTH

When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion – kind, unassuming persuasion – should ever be adopted.

TWENTIETH

If all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them full justice for their conduct during the war.

TWENTY-FIRST

There is something ludicrous in promises of good or threats of evil a great way off.

TWENTY-SECOND

Object whatsoever is possible, still the question recurs, "Can we do better?"

TWENTY-THIRD

I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

TWENTY-FOURTH

God is with us.

TWENTY-FIFTH

Intemperance is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all evils among mankind.

TWENTY-SIXTH

When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification for membership, the Saviour's condensed statement of both law and gospel, that church will I join with all my heart and soul.

TWENTY-SEVENTH

Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but the victory is sure to come.

TWENTY-EIGHTH

The first necessity is of proving that popular government is not an absurdity.

TWENTY-NINTH

People seldom run unless there is something to run from.

THIRTIETH

Allow the people to do as they please with their own business.

OCTOBER

Great statesmen as they (the Fathers of the Republic) were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, none but white men, or none but Anglo-Saxon white men were entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began, so that truth and justice and mercy and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built.

FIRST

Nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on and degraded and imbruted by its fellows.

SECOND

You must remember that some things legally right are not morally right.

THIRD

Mercy bears richer rewards than strict justice.

FOURTH

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.

FIFTH

It is not much in the nature of man to be driven to do anything.

SIXTH

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

SEVENTH

The times are too grave and perilous for ambitious schemes and personal rivalries.

EIGHTH

Act as becomes a patriot.

NINTH

Suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation.

TENTH

If danger ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad.

ELEVENTH

I can't take pay for doing my duty.

TWELFTH

I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom.

THIRTEENTH

We had better have a friend than an enemy.

FOURTEENTH

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.

FIFTEENTH

No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention.

SIXTEENTH

There is no grievance that is a fit subject of redress by mob law.

SEVENTEENTH

Punishment has to follow sin.

EIGHTEENTH

Let us to the end dare to do our duty.

NINETEENTH

Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity, and none will do it enthusiastically.

TWENTIETH

It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws, but to break up both and make new ones.

TWENTY-FIRST

Military glory – that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood.

TWENTY-SECOND

Pleasures to be enjoyed, or pains to be endured, after we shall be dead and gone, are but little regarded.

TWENTY-THIRD

Allow all the governed an equal voice in the government; that, and that alone, is self-government.

TWENTY-FOURTH

The universal sense of mankind on any subject is an argument, or at least an influence, not easily overcome.

TWENTY-FIFTH

Without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.

TWENTY-SIXTH

Unless among those deficient of intellect, every one you trade with makes something.

TWENTY-SEVENTH

Implore the compassion and forgiveness of the Almighty, that he may enlighten the nation to know and to do His will.

TWENTY-EIGHTH

We should look beyond our noses.

TWENTY-NINTH

Labor for all now living, as well as all hereafter to live.

THIRTIETH

I have acted upon my best convictions, without selfishness or malice.

THIRTY-FIRST

Success does not so much depend upon external help as on self-reliance.

NOVEMBER

All are of the great family of men, and if there is one shackle upon any of them, it would be far better to lift the load.

FIRST

Men should utter nothing for which they would not be willingly responsible through time and in eternity.

SECOND

Never mind if you are a count; you shall be treated with just as much consideration, for all that.

THIRD

If Almighty God gives a man a cowardly pair of legs, how can he help their running away with him?

FOURTH

It is against my principles to contest a clear matter of right.

FIFTH

The strife of elections is but human nature applied to the facts of the case.

SIXTH

How nobly distinguished that people who shall have planted and nurtured both the political and moral freedom of their species!

SEVENTH

If we succeed, there will be glory enough.

EIGHTH

Office seekers are a curse to the country.

NINTH

Justice to all.

TENTH

It must be somebody's business.

ELEVENTH

Every man has a right to be equal to every other man.

TWELFTH

Happy day, when, all appetites controlled, all passions subdued, all matter subjugated, mind, conquering mind, shall live and move, the monarch of the world!

THIRTEENTH

We will be remembered in spite of ourselves.

FOURTEENTH

I don't know anything about money. I never had enough of my own to fret me.

FIFTEENTH

Heal the wounds of the nation.

SIXTEENTH

I am not at liberty to shift my ground, that is out of the question.

SEVENTEENTH

For thirty years I have been a temperance man, and I am too old to change.

EIGHTEENTH

The heart is the great highroad to man's reason.

NINETEENTH

Hope to all the world for all future time.

TWENTIETH

The young men must not wait to be brought forward by the older men.

TWENTY-FIRST

Hold firm as a chain of steel.

TWENTY-SECOND

One war at a time.

TWENTY-THIRD

I did not break my sword, for I had none to break, but I bent my musket pretty badly.

TWENTY-FOURTH

Meet face to face and converse together – the best way to efface unpleasant feeling.

TWENTY-FIFTH

And now for a day of Thanksgiving!

TWENTY-SIXTH

The influence of fashion is not confined to any particular thing or class of things.

TWENTY-SEVENTH

Before I resolve to do the one thing or the other, I must gain my confidence in my own ability to keep my resolves when they are made.

TWENTY-EIGHTH

Such of us as have never fallen victims to intemperance have been spared more from the absence of appetite than from any mental or moral superiority over those who have.

TWENTY-NINTH

Our political revolution of 1776 was the germ that has vegetated, and still is to grow into the universal liberty of mankind.

THIRTIETH

By mutual concessions we should harmonize and act together.

DECEMBER

Teach hope to all – despair to none.

FIRST

Rise up to the height of a generation of free men worthy of a free government.

SECOND

Let us be quite sober.

THIRD

We prefer a candidate who will allow the people to have their own way, regardless of his private opinion.

FOURTH

The people's will is the ultimate law for all.

FIFTH

I shall do my utmost that whoever is to hold the helm for the next voyage shall start with the best possible chance of saving the ship.

SIXTH

My gratitude is free from all sense of personal triumph.

SEVENTH

How to do something, and not to do too much, is the desideratum.

EIGHTH

We mean to be as deliberate and calm as it is possible to be; but as firm and resolved as it is possible for men to be.

NINTH

He that will fight to keep himself a slave, ought to be a slave.

TENTH

If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

ELEVENTH

Under all this seeming want of life and motion, the world does move nevertheless.

TWELFTH

I shall never be old enough to speak without embarrassment when I have nothing to talk about.

THIRTEENTH

It adds nothing to my satisfaction that another man shall be disappointed.

FOURTEENTH

Take your full time.

FIFTEENTH

I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself.

SIXTEENTH

The man and the dollar, but, in case of conflict, the man before the dollar.

SEVENTEENTH

The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds.

EIGHTEENTH

We can see the past, though we may not claim to have directed it; and seeing it, we feel more hopeful and confident for the future.

NINETEENTH

Squirming and crawling around can do no good.

TWENTIETH

I wish to see all men free.

TWENTY-FIRST

Let them laugh, so long as the thing works well.

TWENTY-SECOND

Let there be peace.

TWENTY-THIRD

The age is not yet dead.

TWENTY-FOURTH

With malice toward none, with charity for all.

TWENTY-FIFTH

Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country.

TWENTY-SIXTH

Be hopeful.

TWENTY-SEVENTH

Let not him who is homeless pull down the house of another.

TWENTY-EIGHTH

The struggle for to-day is not altogether for to-day – it is for a vast future.

TWENTY-NINTH

We can not escape history.

THIRTIETH

We here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom; and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

THIRTY-FIRST

Let us dare to do our duty as we understand it.