We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Man is by nature a political animal.

You have to make sure you know why you are going to war and then use decisive force to end it as soon as possible.

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other - not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future. 

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

I was a disadvantaged child from a uneducated family, yet I had the advantage of being in the company of great teachers.

Let us give publicity to H.I.V./AIDS and not hide it, because the only way to make it appear like a normal illness like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and say somebody has died because of H.I.V./AIDS, and people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary.

My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigar and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the interval between them.

The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.

In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. 

Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.