Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

If both factions, or neither, shall abuse you, you will probably be about right. Beware of being assailed by one and praised by the other.

[If not re-elected in 1864] then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.

A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall. So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey which catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the highroad to his reason.

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 when crossing streams."

You are green, it is true; but they are green also. You are all green alike.

The surest way to reveal one's character is not through adversity but by giving them power.