All I have learned, I learned from books.

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.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God ... and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

The Bible is not my book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma.

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.

Money possesses no value to the state other than that given to it by circulation.

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.