My experience has taught me that a man who has no vices has damned few virtues.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.

There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.

War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.

Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you want most.

As the chief speaker at the dedication of the national cemetery at the Gettysburg Battlefield, statesman Edward Everett wrote to Lincoln: I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.

The people when rightly and fully trusted will return the trust.