Key takeaways
- Every Abraham Lincoln quote below is matched to the speech or letter it comes from, with the date, so you can check it yourself.
- Lincoln wrote several versions of the Gettysburg Address, and the words "under God" are missing from his first draft.
- "A house divided against itself cannot stand" is a Gospel verse Lincoln put in a campaign circular fifteen years before his famous 1858 speech.
- Several of the most shared Lincoln quotes could not be found anywhere in his speeches or letters, and one is really a line about him by Robert Ingersoll.
- The lines that hold up best on a wall are the short, plain ones he wrote for a specific occasion.
Abraham Lincoln is probably the most misquoted American who ever lived. His real sentences are so good that people keep inventing new ones for him, and the inventions travel faster than the real thing.
This list does the opposite. Each quote comes with the speech or letter it appears in and the date it was delivered or written. The texts were checked against the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln and the 1905 Lapsley edition of his papers, plus the manuscripts and transcriptions published by the Library of Congress.
Which Abraham Lincoln quotes are the most famous?
The most famous Abraham Lincoln quotes come from four speeches: the House Divided speech of 1858, the First Inaugural of 1861, the Gettysburg Address of 1863 and the Second Inaugural of 1865. For once, the popular versions are close to what he said.
The table gathers the verified lines in his own spelling and punctuation, in date order.
| Quote | Source | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| "As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." | Lyceum Address, Springfield | January 27, 1838 |
| "The better part of one's life consists of his friendships." | Letter to Joseph Gillespie | Summer 1849 |
| "No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent." | Speech at Peoria | October 16, 1854 |
| "A house divided against itself cannot stand." | House Divided speech, Springfield | June 16, 1858 |
| "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy." | Undated fragment on democracy | Placed in August 1858 |
| "Let us have faith that right makes might." | Cooper Union Address, New York | February 27, 1860 |
| "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies." | First Inaugural Address | March 4, 1861 |
| "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present." | Annual Message to Congress | December 1, 1862 |
| "Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history." | Annual Message to Congress | December 1, 1862 |
| "I think nothing equals Macbeth. It is wonderful." | Letter to James H. Hackett | August 17, 1863 |
| "...government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." | Gettysburg Address | November 19, 1863 |
| "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." | Letter to Albert G. Hodges | April 4, 1864 |
| "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." | Letter to Albert G. Hodges | April 4, 1864 |
| "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right." | Second Inaugural Address | March 4, 1865 |
What did Lincoln actually say at Gettysburg?
Nobody can say word for word what Lincoln said at Gettysburg, because he left several versions of the speech. The Library of Congress counts five known manuscript copies in his hand: two given to his secretaries John Nicolay and John Hay, and three written later for charity, known as the Everett, Bancroft and Bliss copies.
The Collected Works prints the drafts and a newspaper report side by side, and the differences are small but real. The first draft ends with "that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom." The copy Lincoln later wrote out for Edward Everett reads "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom." So one of the most quoted sentences in American history exists in more than one form, and every one of them is authentic.
Where did "a house divided against itself cannot stand" come from?
The line is from the Gospels, and Lincoln used it long before the speech that made it famous. On June 16, 1858, he closed the Republican State Convention in Springfield with the words "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free." The National Park Service at Lincoln Home publishes the full text and notes the convention had taken the unusual step of naming him its Senate candidate the day before.
The Collected Works shows him reaching for the same verse in a Whig campaign circular of March 4, 1843, crediting it to "he whose wisdom surpasses that of all philosophers."
What did Lincoln say about leadership and power?
Lincoln's most useful lines on leadership are about restraint, not command. At Peoria in 1854 he called consent "the leading principle, the sheet-anchor of American republicanism," in the same passage as "no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."
His letter to Albert G. Hodges of Frankfort, Kentucky, in April 1864 is more striking still. After three years of war, the president of the United States wrote: "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."
The annual message of December 1862 supplies the rest: "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion."
What did Lincoln say in his Second Inaugural Address?
He asked a nation still at war to finish the fight without hatred. "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds."
According to the National Park Service at the Lincoln Memorial, he gave the address on March 4, 1865, only 41 days before his assassination, and it is engraved on the north interior wall of the Memorial, opposite the Gettysburg Address.
Which famous Lincoln quotes did he never say?
Several of the most shared lines have no traceable source in his own words. I searched the full text of the Lapsley edition and the Collected Works volumes covering 1824 to 1848, 1860 to 1861 and 1863 to 1865, using the key words of each line rather than the whole sentence.
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power" is the clearest case. It is a paraphrase of Robert Ingersoll's 1894 lecture on Lincoln, which says: "Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power." Ingersoll was describing Lincoln, not quoting him.
"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe," "In the end, it's not the years in your life that count" and "You can fool all of the people some of the time" turned up nowhere in those searches. By contrast, "The better part of one's life consists of his friendships" sounds like a modern invention and is genuine: it is in an 1849 letter to his friend Joseph Gillespie. Washington's name attracts the same kind of invention, as George Washington quotes checked against his letters shows.
What did Lincoln say about Shakespeare?
He said he read some of the plays over and over, and that Macbeth was the best of them. Writing to the actor James H. Hackett on August 17, 1863, he admitted: "Some of Shakespeare's plays I have never read, while others I have gone over perhaps as frequently as any un-professional reader. Among the latter are Lear, Richard III., Henry VIII., Hamlet, and especially Macbeth. I think nothing equals Macbeth. It is wonderful."
How can you tell if a Lincoln quote is real?
Ask for the speech or letter and the date, and if nobody can give you one, treat the quote as unproven. His speeches and letters were collected and published in full long ago, so a genuine line almost always has an address.
- Look for a named occasion: a speech, a letter with a recipient, or a dated fragment.
- Search his collected writings by two or three distinctive words, not the whole sentence, since quotes drift in wording.
- Be suspicious of modern self-help phrasing such as "the best way to predict your future," which is not how he wrote.
- Check whether the line is really about Lincoln, written by an admirer like Ingersoll, rather than by him.
- For the Gettysburg Address, name the copy you are quoting, because the five manuscripts differ.
Which Lincoln lines work on a wall?
Short lines with a clear date behind them. "With malice toward none" and "We are not enemies, but friends" read in a second and carry their history with them, which suits something you pass every day. Long passages belong in a study, where people sit and read.
Lincoln also works as an image rather than a text. Abe On Vinyl paints him as a record collector, seated beside a crate of records with headphones on, part of a series painted in the style of period oil portraits that drops historical figures into modern creative work. It sits in the historical figure wall art collection alongside Washington, Caesar and Cleopatra. If music is the angle, how music wall art sets the mood of a room covers the pairing, and choosing quote wall art that means something covers words on canvas. Every piece is a single gallery-wrapped canvas, made to order in Europe and ready to hang, with a floating frame as the optional upgrade.
Featured historical figure pieces
Frequently asked questions
What is Abraham Lincoln's most famous quote?
The closing words of the Gettysburg Address, "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth," from November 19, 1863. "A house divided against itself cannot stand" and "With malice toward none" come close behind.
Did Lincoln say "You can fool all of the people some of the time"?
Not in anything he wrote. The line does not appear in his speeches or letters in the Lapsley edition of his papers or in the Collected Works volumes I searched.
Is "Nearly all men can stand adversity" a Lincoln quote?
No. It is a paraphrase of Robert Ingersoll's 1894 lecture about Lincoln, which says most people can bear adversity, but if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. Ingersoll was praising Lincoln, not quoting him.
Did Lincoln say "under God" in the Gettysburg Address?
The phrase is missing from his first draft, but it appears in the newspaper report taken down as he spoke and in the later copies he wrote out, including the one for Edward Everett. That is why the standard text includes it.
Where can I read Lincoln's speeches in full?
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, published in 1953 by the Abraham Lincoln Association, is the standard edition. The Library of Congress publishes the Gettysburg manuscripts, and the National Park Service publishes the House Divided speech and the Second Inaugural.
