Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
Abraham Lincoln (180965)
Property is the fruit of laborproperty is desirableis a positive good in the world. That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprize. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
President ABRAHAM LINCOLN, reply to New York Workingmens Democratic Republican Association, March 21, 1864.The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 7, p. 25960 (1953).