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that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth
Abraham Lincolnverified·Address at the Dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery·November 19, 1863
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15 quotes by Abraham Lincoln · clear filters
2
If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively.
3
Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves.
4
His duty is to administer the present Government as it came to his hands and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor.
5
If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease.
6
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.
7
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.
8
The leading rule for a lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence.
9
Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends--those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the result.
10
Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature,--opposition to it in his love of justice.
11
This declared indifference, but, as I must think, real, covert zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate.
12
What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
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When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government,--that is despotism.
14
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in
15
You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all of the people all the time
Attribution contested
No contemporaneous record of Lincoln saying this survives. It first appears in recollections published decades after his death, and has also been credited to P. T. Barnum. Even the wording is unstable: this is McClure's 1901 text, which differs from the version usually quoted today. Treat the phrasing as the compiler's, not Lincoln's.