Abraham Lincoln Quotes: Inspiring Words of Wisdom from a Great Leader

In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.

The best way to predict your future is to create it.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.

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

Whatever you are, be a good one.

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.

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

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.

Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.

Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.

The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.

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

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

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

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.

I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.

Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it.

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

I have the same opinion of ardent political partisans as an old man had of a U.S. Senator: ‘I don’t know much about him, but I don’t like him.’

I will prepare and someday my chance will come.

You can have anything you want, if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

All I have learned, I learned from books.

I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end.

I am not concerned that you have fallen; I am concerned that you arise.

Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future.

Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.

Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.

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

The best way to predict your future is to create it.

I am not concerned that you have fallen — I am concerned that you arise.

I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s initiative and independence.

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

You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him.

The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.