I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.

Absolute identity with one's cause is the first and great condition of successful leadership.

We are citizens of the world. The tragedy of our times is that we do not know this.

The right is more precious than peace.

I am not one of those who have the least anxiety about the triumph of the principles I have stood for. I have seen fools resist Providence before, and I have seen their destruction, as will come upon these again, utter destruction and contempt. That we shall prevail is as sure as that God reigns.

It was necessary to put the South at a moral disadvantage by transforming the contest from a war waged against states fighting for their indepdence into a war waged against states fighting for the maintenance and extension of slavery...and the world, it might be hoped, would see it as a moral war, not a political; and the sympathy of nations would begin to run for the North, not for the South.

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country.