1
When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government,--that is despotism.
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2
What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
3
If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease.
4
You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all of the people all the time
Attribution contested
No contemporaneous record of Lincoln saying this survives. It first appears in recollections published decades after his death, and has also been credited to P. T. Barnum. Even the wording is unstable: this is McClure's 1901 text, which differs from the version usually quoted today. Treat the phrasing as the compiler's, not Lincoln's.
5
Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another power to resist them.
6
The laws of the United States must be executed.
7
The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.
8
To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
9
The man who has come to regard the ballot box as a juggler's hat has renounced his allegiance.
10
They will presently themselves be compelled to appeal to the law for protection, and those who would use the law as a defense must not deny that use of it to others.
11
Powerful people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those people whose toil and sweat sends us here and pays our way.
12
There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. As well speak of a female liver.
13
What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.
14
This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.
15
The basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment is nothing less than the dignity of man.
16
When the Government acts to take away the fundamental right of citizenship, the safeguards of the Constitution should be examined with special diligence.
17
The economy of injustice is to furnish resources for the fund of corruption.
18
Tyrannous exaction brings on servile concealment; and that again calls forth tyrannous coercion.
19
The love of protecting too often degenerates into downright tyranny.
20
The breakfast was eaten in silence, the women humbled with a sense of their helplessness, and the men gratified with a sense of their power.
21
The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.
22
The average mind is slow in grasping a truth, but when the most thoroughly organized, centralized institution, maintained at an excessive national expense, has proven a complete social failure, the dullest must begin to question its right to exist.
23
The most violent element in society is ignorance.
24
Such exclusion goes over 'the very brink of constitutional power' and falls into the ugly abyss of racism.
25
Good citizens may well claim the protection of good laws and the benign influence of good government, but a claim for office is what the people of a republic should never recognize.