With this honor devolves upon you also a corresponding responsibility. As the country herein trusts you, so under God it will sustain you.

I think that one of the causes of these repeated failures is that our best and greatest men have greatly underestimated the size of this question (slavery). They have constantly brought forward small cures for great sores-plasters too small to cover the wound. That is one reason that all settlements have proved so temporary-so evanescent.

And upon this act [Emancipation Proclamation]...I invoke...the gracious favor of Almighty God.

If you wish to win a man over to your ideas, first make him your friend.

To lead, you must touch men's hearts.

I could not sleep when I got on such a hunt for an idea until I had caught it; ...This was a kind of passion with me, and it has stuck by me; for I am never easy now, when I am handling a thought, till I have bounded it north, and bounded it south, and bounded it east, and bounded it west.

What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution of Slavery?