“You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.”

“You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”

“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.”

“You cannot have the right to do what is wrong!”

“Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.”

“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.”

“I belive that people should fight for what they believe and only what they believe.”