Abraham Lincoln
A portrait of the 16th United States President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Getty Images

Monday marks Abraham Lincoln's 209th birthday. The 16th president of the United States was born Feb. 12, 1809 in Kentucky. He served as president from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865.

"I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families ... second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father ... removed from Kentucky to ... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher ... but that was all," Lincoln said describing his early childhood, five months before receiving the Republican Party's nomination for president in 1860.

Here are 20 Lincoln quotes, collected from BrainyQuote, Wikiquote, GoodReads and AZ Quotes:

1. "Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."

2. "No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar."

3. "It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest."

4. “If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.”

5. "You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."

6. "I will prepare and some day my chance will come."

7. "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other."

8. “Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much.”

9. "The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read."

10. "The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed."

11. "The better part of one's life consists of his friendships."

12. "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

13. “Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.”

Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln delivers his second inaugural address on the east portico of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., March 1865. Library of Congress/Handout via REUTERS

14. "We hope all danger may be overcome; but to conclude that no danger may ever arise would itself be extremely dangerous."

15. "When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion."

16. “The people — the people — are the rightful masters of both congresses, and courts — not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.”

17. “There can be glory in failure and despair in success.”

18. “I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice; and have received a great deal of kindness, not quite free from ridicule. I am used to it.”

19. "Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."

20. "Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way."

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