Abraham Lincoln Quotes

I consecrate my life to the abolition of slavery.

Emancipation is a demand of civilization. All else is intrigue.

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free …

One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.

It is hard for the old slave holding spirit to die. But die it must.

The day dawns; the morning star is bright upon the horizon! The iron gate of our prison stands half open. One gallant rush from the North will fling it wide open, while four millions of our brothers and sisters shall march out into liberty. The chance is now given you to end in a day the bondage of centuries, and to rise in one bound from social degradation to the place of common equality with all other varieties of men.

Not only was I not born to be a slave; I was not born to hope to become the equal of the slave master.

In raising a people from slavery to freedom, you have called them to act on a new theatre; and it is a necessary part of your business, to teach them how to perform their parts.

The day is not distant when we must bear and adopt [the abolition of slavery], or worse will follow.

. . . unless there comes to the Nation a greater emancipation than Lincoln's Proclamation effected, it is doomed, it is bound to go down.

In name we had the Declaration of Independence in 1776; but we gave the lie by our acts to the words of the Declaration of Independence until 1865; and words count for nothing except in so far as they represent acts.

Emancipation - what is meant by it? Simply that the slaves shall cease to be held as property and shall henceforth be held and treated as human beings. Simply, that we should take our feet from off their necks.

To this wonderful page in our country's history another more glorious still will be added, and the slave shall show at last to his free brothers a sharpened sword forged from the links of his fetters.

We cannot, with good conscience, expect the British to set up an orderly schedule for the liberation of India before we have decided for ourselves to make all who live in America free.

Emancipation is the demand of civilization. That is a principle; everything else is an intrigue.

No people will be truly free until all are free.

The work does not end with the abolition of slavery but only begins.

All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.

The maternal love of the Catholic Church embraces all people. As you know, venerable brother, the Church from the beginning sought to completely eliminate slavery, whose wretched yoke has oppressed many people.

We must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued.

There are only two races (and they are not distinguished by color): those who are free and those who are not.

In the name of heaven, with what face can we call ourselves the friends of equal freedom and the inherent rights of our species when we wantonly pass laws inimical to each; when we reject every opportunity of destroying, by silent, imperceptible degrees, the horrid fabric of individual bondage, reared by the mercenary hands of those from whom the sacred flame of liberty received no devotion?

I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom.

Witness, eternal God! Oh, witness that, from this hour, I will do what one man can to drive out this curse of slavery from my land!

Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! [...] You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.