As I would not bea slave, so I wouldnot be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

. . .we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Am I not destroying my enemieswhen I make friends of them?

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt

In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.