My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don’t deny it. I’d rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh—anything but work.

I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.

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.

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.

Life is hard but so very beautiful

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed.

The best way to predict your future is to create it

I distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of friends who would hold my hands while my enemies stab me.

If we have no friends, we have no pleasure; and if we have them, we are sure to lose them, and be doubly pained by the loss.

I can make a General in five minutes but a good horse is hard to replace.

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.

What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization.

Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed

I desire to so conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.