Lincoln Quotes

It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres. We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us.

For example, a man who might not have enormous charisma, who could be president 40 years ago, and who was a deserving president, I don't know that George Washington would be a president today, I don't know that Abe Lincoln would, I don't know that Roosevelt would.

Lincoln had a tremendous capacity for personal growth - more than any other American President.

I teethed on books of heroes such as Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and King David.

The arc of American history almost inevitably moves toward freedom. Whether it's Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, the expansion of women's rights or, now, gay rights, I think there is an almost-inevitable march toward greater civil liberties.

While Lincoln thus became a lawyer, he did not cease to remain a politician.

That settled Abraham Lincoln with me. I was thoroughly satisfied that no such man ought to be President; but I could not yet conceive it possible that such a monster would be the choice of a majority of the people for President.

The Lincoln Memorial is related to the toga and the civilization that wore it.

I therefore shared fully the intense chagrin of the New York and other State delegations when, on the third ballot, Abraham Lincoln received a larger vote than Seward.

If it wasn't for Abe Lincoln, I'd still be on the open market.

If you think Abraham Lincoln became famous for inventing the town car, it is time to spend a few hours on history.

Secretary of War Stanton used to get out of patience with Lincoln because he was all the time pardoning men who ought to be shot.

Lincoln would love the fact that Obama is such a great conciliator, trying to transcend ideology.

Since Obama has expressed admiration for the portrait of Abraham Lincoln that Doris Kearns Goodwin paints in 'Team of Rivals,' he could do the 16th president one better: He should name Hillary Clinton as his running mate in 2012. That would be both needed change and audacious.

I had moved out of the Edison Hotel because I couldn't pay the bill and was living at the Lincoln Hotel, where I couldn't pay the bill either, but it was cheaper.

The party of Lincoln should be reaching out to blacks, Hispanics gays and so forth and so on.

I was able to sit at Lincoln's side and see how he thought and how he acted, and how he felt about what was going on around him. I felt the pressures that were on him. You can see what people were writing to him, how they were nudging him.

The Republican Party, which John McCain led as our nominee in 2008, is going to become irrelevant if we become the party of intolerance and hate. The party founded by Abraham Lincoln was a party that fought slavery and intolerance at every level.

It didn't occur to me that it was possible to breathe life into Abraham Lincoln.

My childhood was influenced by the roles my father played in his movies. Whether Abraham Lincoln or Tom Joad in the 'Grapes of Wrath,' his characters communicated certain values which I try to carry with me to this day.

When I was a child I had a crush on Abraham Lincoln. Why I would choose to reveal this, I know not.

But I have tried to go over it very carefully, not merely what the evidence is, but with psychoanalysts and psychologists, and I think we're just about all agreed that Lincoln and Speed did not have a homosexual relationship.

Jesus and Lincoln, Moses and Jefferson can seem so long gone, so unbelievable, so dead.

In Lincoln's day a President's religion was a very private affair. There were no public prayer meetings, no attempts to woo the Religious Right. Few of Lincoln's countrymen knew anything at all of his religious beliefs.

The secession of the Southern States, individually or in the aggregate, was the certain consequence of Mr. Lincoln's election.

We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. Founder of the Republican Party.

I am a Ford, not a Lincoln.

No man made great by death offers more hope to lowly pride than does Abraham Lincoln; for while living he was himself so simple as often to be dubbed a fool.

I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.

My personal assessment is that Dr. King is the greatest American we have ever produced. I can argue for Lincoln, I can argue for FDR, but for my money, King is the greatest American we have ever produced. His only weapon was love. He transforms a nation, transforms the world with one weapon and that of course being again the weapon of love. So that for me, King is the quintessential example of everything that I could ever want to be in my lifetime.