I am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think vainly, flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.

Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!

Be mild with the mild, shrewd with the crafty, confiding to the honest, rough to the ruffian, and a thunderbolt to the liar. But in all this, never be unmindful of your own dignity.

These men are all talk; What is needed is action - action!

I don't think the people of the slave states will ever consider the subject of slavery in its true light till some other argument is resorted to other than moral persuasion.

Caution, Sir! I am eternally tired of hearing that word caution. It is nothing but the word of cowardice!

The United States is a place where the men govern, but the women rule.

I cannot remember a night so dark as to have hindered the coming day.

The intent and not the deed Is in our power; and, therefore, who dares greatly Does greatly.

Holiness does not consist in mystic speculations, enthusiastic fervours, or uncommanded austerities; it consists in thinking as God thinks, and willing as God wills.

The same eye cannot both look up to heaven and down to earth.

Seek the miracles in sacred moment.

Living with thieves, it would be a matter of moments before they picked the lock, but she certainly was not going to make it easy for them.

You come to a point in your life when you really don't care what people think about you, you just care what you think about yourself.

At all times and in all fields the explanation by fire is a rich explanation.

War is a highly overrated tool of foreign policy.

Adversity is the state in which man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.

Sometimes I try to take a nap before shows. That clears my head.

A dozen direct censures are easier to bear than one morganatic compliment.

The pleasure that is granted to me from a sense of duty ceases to be a pleasure at all.