“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

1860s, First Inaugural Address (1861)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must…" by Abraham Lincoln?
Abraham Lincoln photo
Abraham Lincoln 618
16th President of the United States 1809–1865

Related quotes

Jeff Flake photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Go up close to your friend but do not go over to him! We should respect the enemy that is in our friend”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Assata Shakur photo
Sam Harris photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Yet, wake again, I pray thee, wake;
My soul yet lives upon the chords —
My heart must breathe its wrongs, or break :
Yet can it find relief in words!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(20th March 1824) Metrical Tales. Tale IV.— The Troubadour
The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Joe Biden photo

“To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiLR4sCgvnc
Context: But now, let’s give each other a chance.
It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric.
To lower the temperature.
To see each other again.
To listen to each other again.
To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy.
We are not enemies. We are Americans.

Jack Kornfield photo

“We must look at ourselves over and over again in order to learn to love, to discover what has kept our hearts closed, and what it means to allow our hearts to open.”

Jack Kornfield (1945) American writer

Source: A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

Donald J. Trump photo

“Our enemies probably know every single one [of Clinton's deleted emails]. So they probably now have a blackmail file.. . . We can't hand over our government to someone whose deepest, darkest secrets may be in the hands of our enemies. Can't do it.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

June 22, 2016, speech, quoted in Nobody brings the crazy quite like Trump http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nobody-brings-the-crazy-quite-like-trump/2016/06/22/74ba5692-38bd-11e6-9ccd-d6005beac8b3_story.html?utm_term=.8ca4d5443e7b Dana Milbank, Washington Post, June 22, 2016
2010s, 2016, June

Guy Gavriel Kay photo

“We must be what we are, or we become our enemies.”

Guy Gavriel Kay (1954) Canadian author of fantasy fiction

Source: A Song for Arbonne

Greg Bear photo

“We must know our enemy, at least a little.”

“That’s dangerous,” Prufrax said, almost instinctively.
“Yes, it is. What you know, you cannot hate.”
Source: Short fiction, Hardfought (1983), p. 63

Related topics