Abraham Lincoln

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; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves,...

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 — to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. The man who would enslave another will one day find a logic that justifies his own chains — and be surprised to discover it.

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. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong. I have tried to do this about slavery. I did not begin the war to end it; I ended it because the war required...

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war....

This photograph was taken by Alexander Gardner on 8 November 1863, three weeks before I delivered the Gettysburg Address. I had been told I was too ugly to be photographed well. I did not disagree. A child once told me to grow a beard and I did, which is why you see one here.

People tell me I look sad in photographs. I am not performing sadness. I am...

I walk slowly, but I never walk backward. In politics and in principle, the man who retreats to where he was before the evidence arrived has not been cautious. He has been dishonest.

The speech was two minutes long. Edward Everett, the featured orator, spoke for two hours before me. He wrote afterward: 'I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.'

There are five handwritten copies of the address. None of them, including what is called the...

My great concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side. A nation that asks whether heaven approves of its cause has already placed its politics above its conscience.

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration.

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. I must stand with anybody who stands right, and part with him when he goes wrong.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.