Abraham Lincoln Aw Quotations

But the proclamation, as law, either is valid, or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it can not be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life.

I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States.

I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.

Extemporaneous speaking should be practised and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public....

Laughter can be used to sooth the mind and get rid of those awful thoughts.

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can.

Slavery is wrong. If Slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and Constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away.

I am not an accomplished lawyer.

Legislation and adjudication must follow, and conform to, the progress of society.

A fellow once came to me to ask for an appointment as a minister abroad. Finding he could not get that, he came down to some more modest position. Finally, he asked to be made a tide-waiter. When he saw he could not get that, he asked me for an old pair of trousers. It is sometimes well to be humble ...

How many times have I laughed at you telling me plainly that I was too lazy to be anything but a lawyer.

Extemporaneous speaking should be practised [sic] and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech. And yet there is not a more fatal error to young lawyers than relying too much on speech-making. If any one, upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law, his case is a failure in advance.

I understand that it is a maxim of law, that a poor plea may be a good plea to a bad declaration.

Again, a law may be both constitutional and expedient, and yet may be administered in an unjust and unfair way.

When I have a particular case in hand, I have that motive and feel an interest in the case, feel an interest in ferreting out the questions to the bottom, love to dig up the question by the roots and hold it up and dry it before the fires of the mind.

Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States - old as well as new - North as well as South.

Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.

Yet, if God wills that (this war) continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be repaid by another drawn with the sword,

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

There is nothing true anywhere, The true is nowhere to be seen; If you say you see the true, This seeing is not the true one.

A nation may be said to consist of its territory, its people, and its laws. The territory is the only part which is of certain durability.

It is the quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws; but to break up both, and make new ones.

Let reverence for the laws . . . become the political religion of the nation.

The negative principle that no law is free law, is not much known except among lawyers.

Laws change; people die; the land remains.

A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations...is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism.

Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief -- resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer.

I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I dont believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.

No organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. .. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions.

Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.

Fondly do we hope, ferverently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.

A lawyer's time and advice are his(her) stock in trade.

I dared not trust the case on the presumption that the court knows everything. In fact, I argued it on the presumption that the court didn't know anything.

Why don't I drink from a straw? Because straws are for suckers.

No law is stronger than is the public sentiment where it is to be enforced.

Let me not be understood as saying that there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously observed.

In law it is good policy never to plead what you need not, lest you oblige yourself to prove what you cannot

It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.

When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me not be understood as saying there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise, for the redress of which, no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say, that, although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still while they continue in force, for the sake of example, they should be religiously observed.

In law it is good policy to never plead what you need not, lest you oblige yourself to prove what you can not.

If you wish to be a lawyer, attach no consequence to the place you are in, or the person you are with; but get books, sit down anywhere, and go to reading for yourself. That will make a lawyer of you quicker than any other way.

Law is nothing else but the best reason of wise men applied for ages to the transactions and business of mankind.