Lincoln Quotes
Mary Todd Lincoln: Smile, Senator Wade.
Senator Bluff Wade: I believe I am smiling, Mrs. Lincoln.
Senator Bluff Wade: I believe I am smiling, Mrs. Lincoln.
Movie: Lincoln
Thaddeus Stevens: Nothing surprises you, Asa, therefore nothing about you is surprising. Perhaps that is why your constituents did not re-elect you to the coming term.
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Asa Vintner Litton: Have you lost your very soul, Mr. Stevens? Is there nothing you won't say?
Thaddeus Stevens: I'm sorry you're nauseous, Asa. That must be unpleasant. I want the amendment to pass, so that the constitution's first and only mention of slavery is its absolute prohibition. For this amendment, for which I have worked all my life and for which countless colored men and women have fought and died and now hundreds of thousands of soldiers... No, sir, no, it seems there's very nearly nothing I won't say.
Thaddeus Stevens: I'm sorry you're nauseous, Asa. That must be unpleasant. I want the amendment to pass, so that the constitution's first and only mention of slavery is its absolute prohibition. For this amendment, for which I have worked all my life and for which countless colored men and women have fought and died and now hundreds of thousands of soldiers... No, sir, no, it seems there's very nearly nothing I won't say.
Movie: Lincoln
Ulysses S. Grant: [Grant hands the Confederate peace commissioner's proposal back to them, covered in scribbled notes]Gentlemen, I suggest you work some changes into your proposal before you give it to the President. [Turns and walks away. Stephens follows]
Senator R.M.T. Hunter: We're eager to be on our way to Washington.
Alexander Stephens: Mr Lincoln tell you to tell us this?
Ulysses S. Grant: [Grant takes a cup of coffee from a steward]It says 'securing peace for our two countries' and it goes on like that.
Alexander Stephens: I don't know what you...
Ulysses S. Grant: There's just one country. You and I, we're citizens of that country. I'm fighting to protect it from armed rebels. [Pats Stephen's shoulder and goes to sit down]
Ulysses S. Grant: From you.
Senator R.M.T. Hunter: We're eager to be on our way to Washington.
Alexander Stephens: Mr Lincoln tell you to tell us this?
Ulysses S. Grant: [Grant takes a cup of coffee from a steward]It says 'securing peace for our two countries' and it goes on like that.
Alexander Stephens: I don't know what you...
Ulysses S. Grant: There's just one country. You and I, we're citizens of that country. I'm fighting to protect it from armed rebels. [Pats Stephen's shoulder and goes to sit down]
Ulysses S. Grant: From you.
Movie: Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln: I am the president of the United States of America, clothed in immense power! You will procure me those votes!
Movie: Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln: [Lincoln quoting Falstaff from Shakespeare's King Henry the Fourth]We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
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Abraham Lincoln: Liberality all around. No punishment, I don't want that. And the leaders - Jeff and the rest of 'em - if they escape, leave the country while my back's turned, that wouldn't upset me none. When peace comes it mustn't just be hangings.
Movie: Lincoln
Montgomery Blair: They'll vote for this rash and dangerous amendment only if every other possibility is exhausted.
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Preston Blair: I went to Richmond to talk to traitors, to smile at and plead with traitors, because it'll be spring in two months, the roads'll be passable, the spring slaughter commences.
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Abraham Lincoln: Old Neptune! [paraphrasing Shakespeare's Macbeth]
Abraham Lincoln: Shake thy hoary locks!
Abraham Lincoln: Shake thy hoary locks!
Movie: Lincoln
Senator Bluff Wade: Whalers?
James Ashley: That's what he said.
Senator Bluff Wade: The man's never been near a whale ship in his life!
James Ashley: That's what he said.
Senator Bluff Wade: The man's never been near a whale ship in his life!
Movie: Lincoln
George Pendleton: I appeal to my fellow Democrats, to all Republican representatives who give a fig for peace!
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Richard Schell: Over in Pennsylvania, who's the sweaty man eating his thumb?
Robert Latham: Unknown to me. Seems jumpy.
Richard Schell: Perhaps he'll jump.
Robert Latham: Unknown to me. Seems jumpy.
Richard Schell: Perhaps he'll jump.
Movie: Lincoln
W.N. Bilbo: [on Fernando Wood making his speech]Jesus. When's this son of liberty, sum-a-bitch gonna sit down?
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Thaddeus Stevens: What violates natural law? Slavery and you! Pendleton, you insult God. You unnatural noise.
Movie: Lincoln
Thaddeus Stevens: [to Lincoln]The people elected me to represent them, to lead them, and I lead. You ought to try it.
Movie: Lincoln
William Hutton: I can't make sense of it, what he died for. Mr. Lincoln, I hate them all, I do, all black people. I am a prejudiced man.
Abraham Lincoln: I'd change that in you if I could, but that's not why I come. I might be wrong, Mr. Hutton, but I expect... Colored people will most likely be free, and when that's so, it's simple truth that your brother's bravery, and his death, helped make it so. Only you can decide whether that's sense enough for you, or not.
Abraham Lincoln: I'd change that in you if I could, but that's not why I come. I might be wrong, Mr. Hutton, but I expect... Colored people will most likely be free, and when that's so, it's simple truth that your brother's bravery, and his death, helped make it so. Only you can decide whether that's sense enough for you, or not.
Movie: Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln: I am asking only that you disenthrall yourself from the slave powers. I will let you know when there is an offer on my desk for surrender. There's none before us now. What's before us now, that's the vote on the Thirteenth Amendment. It's going to be so very close. You see what you can do.
Movie: Lincoln
John Usher: It seems to me, sir, you're describing precisely the sort of dictator the Democrats have been howling about.
James Speed: Dictators aren't susceptible to law.
John Usher: Neither is he! He just said as much! Ignoring the courts? Twisting meanings? What reins him in from, from...
Abraham Lincoln: Well, the people do that, I suppose. I signed the Emancipation Proclamation a year and half before my second election. I felt I was within my power to do it; however I also felt that I might be wrong about that; I knew the people would tell me. I gave 'em a year and half to think about it. And they re-elected me. [pauses]
Abraham Lincoln: And come February the first, I intend to sign the Thirteenth Amendment.
James Speed: Dictators aren't susceptible to law.
John Usher: Neither is he! He just said as much! Ignoring the courts? Twisting meanings? What reins him in from, from...
Abraham Lincoln: Well, the people do that, I suppose. I signed the Emancipation Proclamation a year and half before my second election. I felt I was within my power to do it; however I also felt that I might be wrong about that; I knew the people would tell me. I gave 'em a year and half to think about it. And they re-elected me. [pauses]
Abraham Lincoln: And come February the first, I intend to sign the Thirteenth Amendment.
Movie: Lincoln
William Seward: Madam, if the rebels surrendered next week, would you, at the end of this month, want Congressman Burton to vote for the Thirteenth Amendment?
Mrs. Jolly: If that was how it was, no more war an' all, I reckon Mr Jolly much prefer not to have Congress pass the Amendment.
William Seward: And... why is that?
Mr. Jolly: [looks at Seward in surprise]Niggers.
Mrs. Jolly: If he don't have to let some Alabama coon come up from Missouri and steal his chickens and his job, we'd much prefer that. [Seward takes Mrs Jolly's letter, walks over to Lincoln and puts it on his desk]
William Seward: [quietly]The people. I begin to see why you're in such a great hurry to put it through.
Mrs. Jolly: If that was how it was, no more war an' all, I reckon Mr Jolly much prefer not to have Congress pass the Amendment.
William Seward: And... why is that?
Mr. Jolly: [looks at Seward in surprise]Niggers.
Mrs. Jolly: If he don't have to let some Alabama coon come up from Missouri and steal his chickens and his job, we'd much prefer that. [Seward takes Mrs Jolly's letter, walks over to Lincoln and puts it on his desk]
William Seward: [quietly]The people. I begin to see why you're in such a great hurry to put it through.
Movie: Lincoln
William Seward: In my opinion...
Abraham Lincoln: To which I always listen...
William Seward: Or pretend to.
Abraham Lincoln: With all three of my ears.
Abraham Lincoln: To which I always listen...
William Seward: Or pretend to.
Abraham Lincoln: With all three of my ears.
Movie: Lincoln
Thaddeus Stevens: Read it to me again, my love.
Lydia Smith: Proposed...
Thaddeus Stevens: And adopted.
Lydia Smith: Adopted. An Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Section One: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Thaddeus Stevens: Section Two...
Lydia Smith: Congress shall have power to enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation...
Lydia Smith: Proposed...
Thaddeus Stevens: And adopted.
Lydia Smith: Adopted. An Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Section One: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Thaddeus Stevens: Section Two...
Lydia Smith: Congress shall have power to enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation...
Movie: Lincoln
[the three Confederate peace representatives cross the border into Union territory; heading towards their carriage, they balk when they see it being guarded by black soldiers. At last, Stephens steps toward the waiting door]Alexander Stephens: [to soldiers]Much obliged.
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Thaddeus Stevens: As long as your household accounts are in order, Madam, we have no need to investigate them.
Mary Todd Lincoln: You have always taken such a lively, even prosecutorial interest in my household accounts, Mr. Stevens.
Thaddeus Stevens: Your household accounts have always been so interesting.
Mary Todd Lincoln: Yes, thank you, it's true. The miracles I have wrought out of fertilizer bills and cutlery invoices, but I had to. Four years ago, when the President and I arrived, this was a pure pigsty. Tobacco stains in the carpets, mushrooms sprouting from the ceilings! And a pauper's pittance allotted for improvements. As if your committee joined with all of Washington waiting, in what you anticipated to be our comfort in squalor, further proof that my husband and I were prairie primitives, unsuited to the position to which an error of the people, a flaw in the democratic process, had elevated us.
Mary Todd Lincoln: You have always taken such a lively, even prosecutorial interest in my household accounts, Mr. Stevens.
Thaddeus Stevens: Your household accounts have always been so interesting.
Mary Todd Lincoln: Yes, thank you, it's true. The miracles I have wrought out of fertilizer bills and cutlery invoices, but I had to. Four years ago, when the President and I arrived, this was a pure pigsty. Tobacco stains in the carpets, mushrooms sprouting from the ceilings! And a pauper's pittance allotted for improvements. As if your committee joined with all of Washington waiting, in what you anticipated to be our comfort in squalor, further proof that my husband and I were prairie primitives, unsuited to the position to which an error of the people, a flaw in the democratic process, had elevated us.
Movie: Lincoln