I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.

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.

The United States government must not undertake to run the Churches. When an individual, in the Church or out of it, becomes dangerous to the public interest he must be checked.

In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book.

Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.

No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle–the sheet anchor of American republicanism.

I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.

All I ask for the negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy.

The one victory we can ever call complete will be that one which proclaims that there is not one slave or one drunkard on the face of God’s green earth.

You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.