"The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person."

"With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed."

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

"Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored."

"These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have."

"I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known."

"In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong."

"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in that we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth."

"The assertion that 'all men are created equal' was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use."

"When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say."

"It is rather for us here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion."

"No policy that does not rest upon some philosophical public opinion can be permanently maintained."

"I have always been an old-line Henry Clay Whig."

"It has so happened in all ages of the world that some have labored, and others have, without labor, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits."

"I perhaps ought to say that individually I never was much interested in the Texas question. I never could see much good to come of annexation, inasmuch as they were already a free republican people on our own model."

"It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life."

"My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families - second families, perhaps I should say."

"Illinois surpasses every other spot of equal extent upon the face of the globe in fertility of soil and in the proportionable amount of the same which is sufficiently level for actual cultivation."

"Nothing new here, except my marrying, which to me is a matter of profound wonder."

"As to a media personality, well that just happened in large measure because people found me amusing, and I did lots and lots of T.V. news interview shows."

"The education system should teach us about money; it's an incredibly big subject. I run into people all the time that don't have the first clue of what they should do about money."

"I tell you why I don't think I will ever vote for a Democrat, if I may say so. Because for me, the number one issue is right to life, and I don't think the Democrats are very good on the right-to-life issue."

"Israel is our strongest, most reliable ally in the Middle East. Of course, we're their most reliable ally, too."

"I think Darwinism as a theory explaining evolution within species is incredibly brilliant - just unbelievably, incredibly brilliant."