The only security a man can ever have is the ability to do a job uncommonly well.

I am slow to listen to criminations among friends, and never espouse their quarrels on either side. My sincere wish is that both sides will allow bygones to be bygones, and look to the present & future only.

A day spent helping no one but yourself is a day wasted.

In the way our Fathers originally left the slavery question, the institution was in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction . . . . All I have asked or desired anywhere, is that it should be placed back again upon the basis that the Fathers of our government originally placed it upon.

Oh, that [his Thanksgiving Message] is some of Seward's nonsense, and it pleases the fools.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.

We accepted this war for an object, a worthy object, and the war will end when that object is attained. Under God, I hope it never will until that time.