115 of Abraham Lincoln's Most Memorable Quotes in Honor of Presidents' Day

This year, Presidents' Day is on February 19, 2024. And while it also happens to be a date closer to George Washington's birthday (Feb. 22), it's a day we, as Americans, commemorate all of our past presidents, particularly the ones who've paved the way for a greater tomorrow, such as Abraham Lincoln.

As the 16th President of the United States, "honest Abe" served for only four short years—from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. But in that time, he made history as one of our nation's most impactful presidents. He said a lot of memorable and famous quotes along the way, too.

Here are 115 of the best Abraham Lincoln quotes, perfect for Presidents' Day.

Related: 50 U.S. Presidential Trivia Questions & Answers

115 Abraham Lincoln Quotes

1. "Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing." — Abraham Lincoln

2. "Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right." — Abraham Lincoln

3. "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." — Abraham Lincoln

4. “Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” — Abraham Lincoln

5. “No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.” — Abraham Lincoln

6. “Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed.” — Abraham Lincoln

7. “Love is the chain to lock a child to its parent.” — Abraham Lincoln

8. “There are no bad pictures; that’s just how your face looks sometimes.” — Abraham Lincoln

9. “You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry.” — Abraham Lincoln

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

11. “He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.” — Abraham Lincoln

12. “Tact: the ability to describe others as they see themselves.” — Abraham Lincoln

13. “A farce or comedy is best played; a tragedy is best read at home.” — Abraham Lincoln

14. “Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in.” — Abraham Lincoln

15. “For people who like that kind of a book that is the kind of book they will like.” — Abraham Lincoln

16. “I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.” — Abraham Lincoln

17. "I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow." — Abraham Lincoln

18. “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” — Abraham Lincoln

19. “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” — Abraham Lincoln

20. “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” — Abraham Lincoln

21. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” — Abraham Lincoln

22. “Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.” — Abraham Lincoln

23. “Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life.” — Abraham Lincoln

24. “And in the end it is not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.” — Abraham Lincoln

25. “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.” — Abraham Lincoln

26. “Every man’s happiness is his own responsibility.” — Abraham Lincoln

27. “If I am killed, I can die but once; but to live in constant dread of it, is to die over and over again.” — Abraham Lincoln

28. “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” — Abraham Lincoln

29. “I would rather be a little nobody, than to be an evil somebody.” — Abraham Lincoln

30. “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.” — Abraham Lincoln

31. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other thing.” — Abraham Lincoln

32. “I’m a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.” — Abraham Lincoln

33. “I have a congenital aversion to failure.” — Abraham Lincoln

34.“I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has.” — Abraham Lincoln

35. “The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.” — Abraham Lincoln

36. “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 by the light that 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.” — Abraham Lincoln

37. "And having thus chosen our course, without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear, and with manly hearts." — Abraham Lincoln

38. “Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good.” — Abraham Lincoln

39. “What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree.” — Abraham Lincoln

40. “Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.” — Abraham Lincoln

41. “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.” — Abraham Lincoln

42. “I know not how to aid you, save in the assurance of one of mature age, and much severe experience, that you can not fail, if you resolutely determine, that you will not.” — Abraham Lincoln

43. “I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded, in this connection, of a story of an old Dutch farmer who remarked to a companion once that ‘it was not best to swap horses while crossing streams’.” — Abraham Lincoln

44. “I have stepped out upon this platform that I may see you and that you may see me, and in the arrangement I have the best of the bargain.”

45. “The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity.” — Abraham Lincoln

46. “This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.” — Abraham Lincoln

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

48. “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” — Abraham Lincoln

49. “You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.” — Abraham Lincoln

50. “The one victory we can ever call complete will be that one which proclaims that there is not one slave or one drunkard on the face of God’s green earth.” — Abraham Lincoln

Related: 125 George Washington Quotes

51. “All I ask for the negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy.” — Abraham Lincoln

52. "I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.” — Abraham Lincoln

53. “No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle–the sheet anchor of American republicanism.” — Abraham Lincoln

54. “It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.” — Abraham Lincoln

55. “Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.” — Abraham Lincoln

56. “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 lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” — Abraham Lincoln

57. “I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war. I will close by saying, God bless the women of America!” — Abraham Lincoln

58. “In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book.” — Abraham Lincoln

59. “The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party – and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.” — Abraham Lincoln

60. “I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.” — Abraham Lincoln

61. “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” — Abraham Lincoln

62. “The United States government must not undertake to run the Churches. When an individual, in the Church or out of it, becomes dangerous to the public interest he must be checked.” — Abraham Lincoln

63. “Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable – a most sacred right – a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.” — Abraham Lincoln

64. “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – 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.” — Abraham Lincoln

65. “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.” — Abraham Lincoln

66. “I desire to so conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.” — Abraham Lincoln

67. “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.” — Abraham Lincoln

68. “The ballot is stronger than the bullet.” — Abraham Lincoln

69. “I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization.” — Abraham Lincoln

70. “Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser–in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.” — Abraham Lincoln

Related: 10 Facts You May Not Know About Lincoln

71. “The love of property and consciousness of right and wrong have conflicting places in our organization, which often makes a man’s course seem crooked, his conduct a riddle.” — Abraham Lincoln

72. “What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?” — Abraham Lincoln

73. “Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” — Abraham Lincoln

74. “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.” — Abraham Lincoln

75. “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.” — Abraham Lincoln

76. “Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” — Abraham Lincoln

77. “I can make a General in five minutes but a good horse is hard to replace.” — Abraham Lincoln

78. “My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don’t deny it. I’d rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh—anything but work.” — Abraham Lincoln

79. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” — Abraham Lincoln

80. “If we have no friends, we have no pleasure; and if we have them, we are sure to lose them, and be doubly pained by the loss.”

81. “I distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of friends who would hold my hands while my enemies stab me.” — Abraham Lincoln

82. “I never encourage deceit, and falsehood, especially if you have got a bad memory, is the worst enemy a fellow can have. The fact is truth is your truest friend, no matter what the circumstances are.” — Abraham Lincoln

83. "I’m a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn’t have the heart to let him down." — Abraham Lincoln

84. "Whatever you are, be a good one." — Abraham Lincoln

85. "I am a slow walker, but I never walk back." — Abraham Lincoln

86. "Those who look for the bad in people will surely find it." — Abraham Lincoln

87. "Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm." — Abraham Lincoln

88. "I will prepare and someday my chance will come." — Abraham Lincoln

89. "I do the very best I know how–the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end." — Abraham Lincoln

90. "My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure." — Abraham Lincoln

91. "I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice." — Abraham Lincoln

92. "Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle." — Abraham Lincoln

93. "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." — Abraham Lincoln

94. "I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being." — Abraham Lincoln

95. "Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored." — Abraham Lincoln

96. "There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law." — Abraham Lincoln

97. "If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already." — Abraham Lincoln

98. “The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.” — Abraham Lincoln

99. "I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered, or my term expires, or Congress or the country forsakes me...
A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones." — Abraham Lincoln

100. "The old general rule was that educated people did not perform manual labor. They managed to eat their bread, leaving the toil of producing it to the uneducated. This was not an insupportable evil to the working bees, so long as the class of drones remained very small. But now, especially in these free States, nearly all are educated--quite too nearly all, to leave the labor of the uneducated, in any wise adequate to the support of the whole. It follows from this that henceforth educated people must labor. Otherwise, education itself would become a positive and intolerable evil. No country can sustain, in idleness, more than a small percentage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at something productive." — Abraham Lincoln

Related: 101 Winston Churchill Quotes

101. "On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we have been. When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that 'all men are created equal' a self evident truth; but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim 'a self evident lie.'" — Abraham Lincoln

102. "Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere." — Abraham Lincoln

103. "Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time." — Abraham Lincoln

104. "I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free." — Abraham Lincoln

105. "In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth." — Abraham Lincoln

106. "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." — Abraham Lincoln

107. "The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing." — Abraham Lincoln

108. "In very truth he was, the noblest work of God—an honest man." — Abraham Lincoln

109. "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." — Abraham Lincoln

110. "Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief -- 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." — Abraham Lincoln

111. "In law it is a good policy to never plead what you need not, lest you oblige yourself to prove what you can not." — Abraham Lincoln

112. "Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling." — Abraham Lincoln

113. "I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence." — Abraham Lincoln

114. "Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense." — Abraham Lincoln

115. “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” — Abraham Lincoln

Next up, read these 30 inspiring quotes from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to commemorate Presidents' Day, too!