Popular Quotes Through Time

Legislation and adjudication must follow, and conform to, the progress of society.

Wise councils may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later the victory is sure to come

May they [firefighters] extinguish all the bad flames, but keep the flame of patriotism ever burning brightly in the hearts of the ladies.

How in God's name do you let such paragraphs into the Tribune? ... I confess it astonishes me.

The leading rule for the Lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day.

I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any Abolitionist.

I planted myself upon the truth, and the truth only, so far as I knew it, or could be brought to know it.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

When a man hears himself somewhat misrepresented, it provokes him - at least, I find it so with myself; but when the misrepresentation becomes very gross and palpable, it is more apt to amuse him.

Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.

I would despise myself if I supposed myself ready to deal less liberally with an adversary than I was willing to be treated myself.

Douglas is playing cuttlefish, a small species of fish that has no mode of defending itself when pursued except by throwing out a black fluid, which makes the water so dark the enemy cannot see it.

There is no contending against the Will of God; but still there is some difficulty in ascertaining, and applying it, to particular cases.

I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political evil

We have enough objects of charity at home, and it is our duty to take care of our own poor, and our own suffering, before we go abroad to intermeddle with other people's business.

Has it not got down as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to Death ?

I think the negro is included in the word 'men' used in the Declaration of Independence.

Just think of such a sucker as me as President!

The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one, or even one hundred, defeats.

Though I now sink out of view, and shall be forgotten, I believe I have made some marks which will tell for the cause of civil liberty long after I am gone.