You can’t make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak

I could as easily bail out the Potomac River with a teaspoon as attend to all the details of the army.

I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father ... removed from Kentucky to ... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher ... but that was all.

I say 'try'; if we never try, we shall never succeed.

My friends I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail.

I think the authors of that notable instrument [the Declaration of Independence] intended to include all men.

The eyes of that species of extinct giant, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara as our eyes do now.