Roosevelt, Theodore
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Roosevelt, Theodore
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Colleges and Universities
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Dedication
At sometime in our lives a devil dwells within us, causes heartbreaks, confusion and troubles, then dies.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Devil
In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Decisions
No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Expediency
No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Causes
My hat s in the ring. The fight is on and I m stripped to the buff.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Competition
Don t foul, don t flinch. Hit the line hard.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Courage
The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Duty
A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards. More than that no man is entitled to, and less than that no man shall have.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Patriotism
The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Government
No man is above the law, and no man is below it.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Equality
The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Failure
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Failure
I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Heart
There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the money touch, but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Government
Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Immigration
It is better to be faithful than famous.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Loyalty
It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Labor
It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Law and Lawyers
The men and women who have the right ideals... are those who have the courage to strive for the happiness which comes only with labor and effort and self-sacrifice, and those whose joy in life springs in part from power of work and sense of duty.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Self-sacrifice
People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Leaders and Leadership
The men with the muck-rake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Media
The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Leaders and Leadership
Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Ideals and Idealism
There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 % Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Multiculturalism
The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Politicians and Politics
When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer present or not guilty.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Politicians and Politics
All the resources we need are in the mind
Roosevelt, Theodore
Mind
The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything
Roosevelt, Theodore
Mistakes
The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is thinking most often and in the loudest voice.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Politicians and Politics
Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Obedience
The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Peace
Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another s keeping.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Peace
I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!
Roosevelt, Theodore
Opinions
No man needs sympathy because he has to work. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Sympathy
Willful sterility is, from the standpoint of the nation, from the standpoint of the human race, the one sin for which the penalty is national death, race death; a sin for which there is no atonement. No man, no woman, can shirk the primary duties of life, whether for love of ease and pleasure, or for any other cause, and retain his or her self-respect.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Procreation
It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Trade Unions
Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Power
Don t hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting, but never hit soft.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Strength
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Risk
It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks, and the greatest of all prizes are those connected with the home.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Risk
Aggressive fighting for the right is the greatest sport in the world.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Right and Rightness
One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called weasel words. When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a weasel word after another there is nothing left of the other.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Words
Our chief usefulness to humanity rests on our combining power with high purpose. Power undirected by high purpose spells calamity, and high purpose by itself is utterly useless if the power to put it into effect is lacking.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Purpose
I want to see you shoot the way you shout.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Soldier
It is not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause. Who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Risk
No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Public Office
I don t pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Unemployment
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell em, Certainly I can! -- and get busy and find out how to do it.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Success
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Success
Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Effort
The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.
Roosevelt, Theodore
America
There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Effort
We must remember not to judge any public servant by any one act, and especially should we beware of attacking the men who are merely the occasions and not the cause of disaster.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Blame
The American people abhor a vacuum.
Roosevelt, Theodore
America
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Action
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Education
Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Action
I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Averages
To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Education
For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Children
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Work
We need the iron qualities that go with true manhood. We need the positive virtues of resolution, of courage, of indomitable will, of power to do without shrinking the rough work that must always be done.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Work
Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Wisdom
Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Work
Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.
Roosevelt, Theodore
Wealth