What I want is to get done what the people desire to have done, and the question for me is how to find that out exactly.

The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good.

Military necessity does not admit of cruelty - that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, . . . nor of torture to extort confessions.

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. -Speech at Clinton, Illinois, September 8, 1854.

You can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.