MELCO Enterprises
Technology Consultants, Entrepreneurs and Philanthropists
The Power to be the Best...

Abraham Lincoln Quotes


“If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what you will, is the great high-road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), U.S. president. Address, 22 Feb. 1842, to the Washingtonian Temperance Society, Springfield, Ill.

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

Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. president. Quoted in: John Hay, Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay (ed. by Tyler Dennett, 1939), entry for 23 Dec. 1863, said in a dream in reply to one who had called Lincoln “common looking.”

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

Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. president. Speech, 16 Oct. 1854, Peoria, Ill., in the first of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

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

Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. president. Autograph fragment, c. 1 Aug. 1858 (published in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2, ed. by Roy P. Basler, 1953).

“Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. president. Speech, 21 March 1864, in reply to committee from the New York Workingmen’s Association.

“The ballot is stronger than the bullet.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. president. Speech, 19 May 1856, Bloomington, Ill.

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

Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. president.

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. president. (16th US President (1861-65), who brought about the emancipation of the slaves.)