# Abraham Lincoln quotes he really said

Lincoln's best-known lines with the speech or letter each comes from. No fakes: «Nearly all men can stand adversity…» and «You can fool all the people…» are left out because there's no record of him saying them.

- 36 votes · 12 items
- Mar 27, 2021 · fanzone_boston
- https://even.best/en/l/1383/abraham-lincoln-quotes-he-really-said

## Top 12

1. **I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did.** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — Cooper Union speech, New York, 27 February 1860.
2. **…government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.** (4 · ▲5 ▼1) — Closing words of the Gettysburg Address (1863).
3. **Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty…** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — Opening of the Gettysburg Address, 19 November 1863.
4. **My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Letter to Horace Greeley, 22 August 1862.
5. **If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Letter to Albert G. Hodges, 4 April 1864.
6. **As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Lyceum Address, Springfield, 1838, when he was 28.
7. **A house divided against itself cannot stand.** (1 · ▲3 ▼2) — House Divided speech, Springfield, 16 June 1858, quoting the Gospels.
8. **We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1861, appealing to the South.
9. **…when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — The closing image of the First Inaugural Address (1861).
10. **With malice toward none, with charity for all…** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Second Inaugural Address, 4 March 1865, weeks before the end of the Civil War.
11. **Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — To an Indiana regiment passing through Washington, 17 March 1865.
12. **It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — To the National Union League after his renomination, 9 June 1864.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.