"We should avoid planting and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of society."
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Abraham Lincoln quotes (page 50 of 58)
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"I cannot speak so confidently about the fighting qualities of the Eastern men, or what are called Yankees - not knowing myself particularly to whom the appellation belongs - but this I do know - if the Southerners think that man for man they are better than our Illinois men, or western men generally, they will discover themselves in a grievous mistake."
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"The president is the cube of ice one places in the pot of a houseplant, providing a steady amount of nourishment over the course of a hot day. A good description of the job and also a fantastic bit of practical household advice."
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"In using the strong hand, as now compelled to do, the government has a difficult duty to perform. At the very best, it will by turns do both too little and too much. It can properly have no motive of revenge, no purpose to punish merely for punishment's sake. While we must, by all available means, prevent the overthrow of the government, we should avoid planting and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of society."
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"You may have a wen or a cancer upon your person and not be able to cut it out lest you bleed to death; but surely it is no way tocure it, to engraft it and spread it over your whole body."
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"[If not re-elected in 1864] then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards."
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"I am not an accomplished lawyer."
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"You must think I am a high-priced man.... Fifteen dollars is enough for the job. I send you a receipt for fifteen dollars, and return to you a ten-dollar bill."
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"The matter of fees is important, far beyond the mere question of bread and butter involved. Properly attended to, fuller justice is done to both lawyer and client."
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"You already know I desire that neither Father or Mother shall be in want of any comfort either in health or sickness while they live."
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"I find quite as much material for a lecture in those points wherein I have failed, as in those wherein I have been moderately successful."
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"If I had my way, this war would never have been commenced. If I had been allowed my way this war would have been ended before this."
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"Legislation and adjudication must follow, and conform to, the progress of society."
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"A right result, at this time, will be worth more to the world, than ten times the men, and ten times the money."
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"Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it."
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"We must believe that He permits it [this war] for some wise purpose of his own, mysterious and unknown to us; and though with ourlimited understandings we may not be able to comprehend it, yet we cannot but believe, that he who made the world still governs it."
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"It is bad to be poor. I shall go to the wall for bread and meat, if I neglect my business this year as well as last."
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"I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing, that no man desires for himself."
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"I wish to see, in process of disappearing, that only thing which ever could bring this nation to civil war."
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"I have neither time nor disposition to enter into discussion with the Friend, and end this occasion by suggesting for her consideration the question whether, if it be true that the Lord has appointed me to do the work she has indicated, it is not probable that he would have communicated knowledge of the fact to me as well as to her."
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