None seemed to think the injury arose from the use of a bad thing but from the abuse of a very good thing

If 600,000 people have to die in order for the nation to live, then 600,000 people will die.

I wish all men to be free. I wish the material prosperity of the already free which I feel sure the extinction of slavery would bring.

Tis better people think you a fool, then open your mouth and erase all doubt.

I have had so many evidences of [God's] direction, so many instances when I have been controlled by some other power than my own will, that I cannot doubt that this power comes from above.

If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already. It is but a small matter whether you read with anyone or not. I did not read with anyone. Get the books, and read and study them till you understand them in their principal features; and that is the main thing. It is of no consequence to be in a large town while you are reading. I read at New Salem, which never had three hundred people living in it. The books, and your capacity for understanding them, are just the same in all places.

The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves.