Abraham Lincoln Quotes

If the American Revolution had produced nothing but the Declaration of Independence, it would have been worthwhile.

We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal …

July 4, 1776 was the historic day on which the representatives of three millions of people vocalized Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill, which gave notice to the world that they proposed to establish an independent nation on the theory that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

New Hampshire is one of the birthplaces of American freedom and independence - a place with a love and a passion for liberty.

When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, sir, was the primary object.

We made freedom a birthright.

Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Unmanacle the slave… unsceptre the despot… erect an altar on the Inquisition’s grace, to raise a people to the altitude of freedom.

We hold these truths to be self-evident …

Our nation was not founded because we all looked alike, or prayed alike, or descended from the same family tree. But our founders, in their genius, in this, the oldest constitutional democracy, put forth on this earth the idea that all are created equal; that we all have inalienable rights.

I hope every person who reads or hears this will take the time to go back and read the Declaration of Independence. Only by recapturing the spirit of independence can we ensure our government never resembles the one from which the American States declared their separation.

In the summer of 1776 our Founding Fathers sought to secure our independence and the liberties that remain the foundation of our nation today.

This country was founded upon the principle that we are all endowed with certain inalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - those rights are what make America great, and they belong to each and every one of us.

There have been in this century only one great man and one great thing: Napoleon and liberty. For want of the great man, let us have the great thing.

Our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the Negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, sneered at, construed, hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.

My grand affair appears settled, for America is certain of her independence, humanity has gained her cause, and liberty will never be without a place of refuge.

The United States was the first country in the history of the world to be consciously created out of an idea - and the idea was liberty.

It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.

Those who won our independence... valued liberty as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.

Tens of thousands of brave Americans died to break the chains of British tyranny so that the principles of our Declaration of Independence could take fold and flourish in the birth of a new nation.

Give me liberty or give me death.

The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.

A British nobleman is a free man, and therefore has a right to adopt any country which is endeavoring to reestablish the rights of aggrieved humanity

Democracies have been, and governments called, free; but the spirit of independence and the consciousness of unalienable rights, were never before transfused into the minds of a whole people....The feeling of equality which they proudly cherish does not proceed from an ignorance of their station, but from the knowledge of their rights; and it is this knowledge which will render it so exceedingly difficult for any tyrant ever to triumph over the liberties of our country.

The glorious spectacle of eighteen millions of people, struggling to burst their chains and be free.