We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

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

Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who improves his workmanship.

I told myself, "Lincoln, you can never make a lawyer if you do not understand what demonstrate means." So I left my situation in Springfield, went home to my father's house, and stayed there till I could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid at sight. I then found out what "demonstrate" means, and went back to my law studies.

A fellow once came to me to ask for an appointment as a minister abroad. Finding he could not get that, he came down to some more modest position. Finally, he asked to be made a tide-waiter. When he saw he could not get that, he asked me for an old pair of trousers. It is sometimes well to be humble.

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave in not "distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it.

My wife is as handsome as when she was a girl, and I...fell in love with her; and what is more, I have never fallen out.