QuoteOfTheDay submissions

Be the change you wish to see

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

—Martin Luther King, Jr., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

—Rabindranath Tagore, [1]

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

—Mahatma Gandhi

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?

—Mahatma Gandhi

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

—Mahatma Gandhi

It may be long before the law of love will be recognized in international affairs. The machineries of government stand between and hide the hearts of one people from those of another.

—Mahatma Gandhi

As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side.

—Mahatma Gandhi

There is more to life than simply increasing its speed.

—Mahatma Gandhi

We must be the change we wish to see.

—Mahatma Gandhi

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

—Mahatma Gandhi

The moment there is suspicion about a person's motives, everything he does becomes tainted.

—Mahatma Gandhi

Suffering cheerfully endured, ceases to be suffering and is transmuted into an ineffable joy.

—Mahatma Gandhi

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

—Abraham Lincoln

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

—Abraham Lincoln

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

—Abraham Lincoln

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

—Abraham Lincoln

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

—Abraham Lincoln

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

—Abraham Lincoln

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work ;we are in.

—Abraham Lincoln

We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

—Abraham Lincoln

We have forgotten the gracious hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving Grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

—Abraham Lincoln

Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in bonds of fraternal feeling.

—Abraham Lincoln

If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.

—Abraham Lincoln

Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

—Abraham Lincoln

What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.

—Abraham Lincoln

He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.

—Abraham Lincoln

You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.

—Abraham Lincoln

Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.

—Abraham Lincoln

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

—Abraham Lincoln

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

—Abraham Lincoln

That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

—Abraham Lincoln

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

—Abraham Lincoln

We know nothing of what will happen in future, but by the analogy of experience.

—Abraham Lincoln

When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that's my religion.

—Abraham Lincoln

Knavery and flattery are blood relations.

—Abraham Lincoln

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool then to speak out and remove all doubt.

—Abraham Lincoln

Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.

—Abraham Lincoln

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.

—Abraham Lincoln

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?

—Abraham Lincoln

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.

—Abraham Lincoln

I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side.

—Abraham Lincoln

Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its people or too weak to maintain its own existence?

—Abraham Lincoln

Worse than traitors in arms are the men who pretend loyalty to the flag, feast and fatten on the misfortunes of the Nation while patriotic blood is crimsoning the plains of the South and their countrymen moldering the dust.

—Abraham Lincoln

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.

—Abraham Lincoln

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.

—Abraham Lincoln

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. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.

—Abraham Lincoln

He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.

—Abraham Lincoln

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

—Abraham Lincoln

The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.

—Abraham Lincoln

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? -Abraham Lincoln.

—Abraham Lincoln

People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.

—Abraham Lincoln

If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.

—Abraham Lincoln

You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

—Abraham Lincoln

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

—Abraham Lincoln

In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.

—Abraham Lincoln

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad and, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

—Abraham Lincoln in his first inaugural address

have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

—Abraham Lincoln. (mercy.html)

Avoid popularity if you would have peace.

—Abraham Lincoln

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.

—Abraham Lincoln

I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.

—Abraham Lincoln

Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; it is a positive good in the world.

—Abraham Lincoln

Friends, I agree with you in Providence; but I believe in the Providence of the most men, the largest purse, and the longest cannon.

—Abraham Lincoln

The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

—Abraham Lincoln

Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and force a new one that suits them better.

—Abraham Lincoln

Let us have faith that Right makes Might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.

—Abraham Lincoln in an address at New York City

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.

—Abraham Lincoln at the Second Inaugural Address

Let the people know the truth and the country is safe.

—Abraham Lincoln

He who molds the public sentiment ... makes statues and decisions possible or impossible to make.

—Abraham Lincoln

I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

—Abraham Lincoln

In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free,--honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.

—Abraham Lincoln at an Annual Message to Congress

Suspicions which may be unjust need not be stated.

—Abraham Lincoln

Tact: the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

—Abraham Lincoln

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

—Abraham Lincoln

Folks who have no vices have plaguey few virtues.

—Abraham Lincoln

Beware of rashness, but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victories.

—Abraham Lincoln

Among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet.

—Abraham Lincoln

We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot.

—Abraham Lincoln

This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birthday of Washington. We are met to celebrate this day. Washington is the mightiest name on earth--long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty; still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name an eulogy is expected. It can not be. To add brightness to the sun or glory to the name of Washington is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pronounce the name and in its naked, deathless splendor leave it shining on.

—Abraham Lincoln, George

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

—Abraham Lincoln