Abraham Lincoln Quotes

You know that being an American is more than a matter of where your parents came from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break.

I have said that in their right to "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness," as proclaimed in that old Declaration, the inferior races are our equals.

The promise of our country is that the rules are fair.

Freedom and opportunity are precious gifts and the purpose of our politics is to expand them, for all our people.

We can continue our progress as a Nation toward the promise that all people are created equal and that our Nation will treat every person in that spirit.

All men are by nature born equally free and independent.

And this we should believe: that hope and volition can bring us closer to our ultimate goal: justice for all, injustice for no-one.

Freedom is not enough.

Today, we stand as a united country and are much closer to the ideals set forth in our Constitution that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Treat all men alike. Give them the same law. Give them an even chance to live and grow.

Democracies have been, and governments called, free; but the spirit of independence and the consciousness of unalienable rights, were never before transfused into the minds of a whole people....The feeling of equality which they proudly cherish does not proceed from an ignorance of their station, but from the knowledge of their rights; and it is this knowledge which will render it so exceedingly difficult for any tyrant ever to triumph over the liberties of our country.

All men are born free.

Stronger than all the armies is the idea whose time has come. The time has come for equality in sharing in government and education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here.

I hope that liberty and equality and opportunity lie within your heart because the hopes of millions of Americans depend on it.

I think the negro is included in the word "men" used in the Declaration of Independence.

The principles for which we stand are the principles of fair play and a square deal for every man and every woman in the United States.

You are the stars and the world is watching you. By your presence you send a message to every village, every city, every nation. A message of hope. A message of victory. The right to play on any playing field? You have earned it. The right to study in any school? You have earned it. The right to hold a job? You have earned it. The right to anyone's neighbor? You have earned it.

There is what I call the American idea. I so name it, because it seems to me to lie at the basis of all our truly original, distinctive, and American institutions. It is itself a complex idea, composed of three subordinate and more simple ideas, namely: The idea that all men have unalienable rights; that in respect thereof, all men are created equal; and that government is to be established and sustained for the purpose of giving every man an opportunity for the enjoyment and development of all these unalienable rights. This idea demands, as the proximate organization thereof, a democracy, that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government after the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness' sake, I will call it the idea of Freedom.

Everyone is born free and equal.

I don't care if you're Christian, you're Muslim, you're gay, you're straight - I am here to fight for your equality. Because I believe that we are all born equal, but we are not treated equally, and that is why we must fight.

All men are created equal.

Everybody has an equal right to be on this earth and to be happy on this earth and to achieve on this earth. That's kind of the way that I would like to try and go about living.

Wise statesmen ... established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity should look up again at the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began.

A fair and just society offers equality of opportunity to all. But it cannot promise, and should not try to enforce, sameness.

The idea of freedom is quite in accord with a general, though vague, sentiment among us; it is an idea of fair play, of giving everyone a chance; and nothing arouses more general and active indignation among our people than the belief that some one or some class is not getting a fair chance.