We think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this.
Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.
You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work, I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time.
Don't swap horses in crossing a stream.
Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, 'Truth is the daughter of Time.'
He who molds the public sentiment... makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.
The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.
It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.
Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we, as a people, can be engaged in.
I have talked with great men, and I do not see how they differ from others.
Upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.
A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.
