Theodore Roosevelt Quotes & Sayings

Alone of human beings the good and wise mother stands on a plane of equal honor with the bravest soldier; for she has gladly gone down to the brink of the chasm of darkness to bring back the children in whose hands rests the future of the years. — Theodore Roosevelt

We rested a couple of hours at noon for lunch, and the afternoon's sport was simply a repetition of the morning's, except that we had but one dog to work with; for shortly after mid-day the stub-tail pointer, for his sins, encountered a skunk, with which he waged prompt and valiant battle - thereby rendering himself, for the balance of the time, wholly useless as a servant and highly offensive as a companion. — Theodore Roosevelt

I have no business to feel downcast or querulous merely because when so much as been given me I have not had even more. — Theodore Roosevelt

Is America a weakling, to shrink from the work of the great world powers? No! The young giant of the West stands on a continent and clasps the crest of an ocean in either hand. Our nation, glorious in youth and strength, looks into the future with eager eyes and rejoices as a strong man to run a race. — Theodore Roosevelt

For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out. — Theodore Roosevelt

I had always felt that if there were a serious war I wished to be in a position to explain to my children why I did take part in it, and not why I did not take part in it. — Theodore Roosevelt

In the long run, success or failure will be
conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average women, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. — Theodore Roosevelt

I do. That is character! — Theodore Roosevelt

When you get to the end of your rope, tie a know and hang on. — Theodore Roosevelt

Just as you believe you may have already halfway there — Theodore Roosevelt

The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants. — Theodore Roosevelt

We must hold to a rigid accountability those public servants who show unfaithfulness to the interests of the nation or inability to rise to the high level of the new demands upon our strength and our resources. — Theodore Roosevelt

Water is a commodity not by any means to be found everywhere ... When found, it is more than likely to be bad, being either from a bitter alkaline pool, or from a hole in a creek, so muddy that it can only be called liquid by courtesy. — Theodore Roosevelt

I have often thought that unselfishness combined in one word more of the teachings of the Bible than any other in the language. — Theodore Roosevelt

The wildlife and its habitat cannot speak, so we must and we will. — Theodore Roosevelt

No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumphs of war. — Theodore Roosevelt

Never hit if you can help it, but when you have to, hit hard. Never hit soft. You'll never get any thanks for hitting soft. — Theodore Roosevelt

The great man is always the man of mighty effort. — Theodore Roosevelt

A just war is in the long run far better for a man's soul than the most prosperous peace. — Theodore Roosevelt

A nation that still needs to distinguish between stealing an election, and stealing a new pair of shoes, is not completely civilized yet. — Theodore Roosevelt

The Bad Lands grade all the way from those that are almost rolling in character to those that are so fantastically broken in form and so bizarre in color as to seem hardly properly to belong to this earth. — Theodore Roosevelt

Death is always, under all circumstances, a tragedy, for if it is not then it means that life has become one. — Theodore Roosevelt

If I have erred, I err in company with Abraham Lincoln. — Theodore Roosevelt

I'm as strong as a bull moose and you can use me to the limit. — Theodore Roosevelt

Life is as if you were traveling a ridge crest. You have the gulf of inefficiency on one side and the gulf of wickedness on the other, and it helps not to have avoided one gulf if you fall into the other. — Theodore Roosevelt

A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues. — Theodore Roosevelt

If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base and sordid creature, no matter how successful. — Theodore Roosevelt

To have acted otherwise ... would have been the betrayal of the interests of the United States. — Theodore Roosevelt

The woman has the right to be emancipated from the position of a drudge or a toy. She is entitled to a full equality in rights with man ... — Theodore Roosevelt

It is no use to preach to children if you do not act decently yourself. — Theodore Roosevelt

The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom. — Theodore Roosevelt

Leave it as it is. You can not improve on it. You can only mar it. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it. What you can do is keep it for your children, your children's children and for all who come after you. — Theodore Roosevelt

We have room in this country for but one flag, the Stars and Stripes! — Theodore Roosevelt

Credit should go with the performance of duty, and not with what is very often the accident of glory. — Theodore Roosevelt

The spirit of brotherhood recognizes of necessity both the need of self-help and also the need of helping others in the only way which every ultimately does great god, that is, of helping them to help themselves. — Theodore Roosevelt

Learn to draw quick and shoot straight, - the former being even more important than the latter, - and probably has to take life after life in order to save his own. Some of these men are brave only because of their confidence in their own skill and strength ; once convince them that they are overmatched and they turn into abject cowards. Others have nerves of — Theodore Roosevelt

The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything. — Theodore Roosevelt

The Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation. It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. — Theodore Roosevelt

I highly venerate the Masonic Institution, under the fullest persuasion that, when its principles are acknowledged and its laws and precepts obeyed, it comes nearest to the Christian religion, in its moral effects and influence, of any institution with which I am acquainted. — Theodore Roosevelt

War with evil; but show no spirit of malignity toward the man who may be responsible for the evil. Put it out of his power to do wrong. — Theodore Roosevelt

It may be that at some time in the dim future of the race the need for war will vanish: but that time is yet ages distant. As yet no nation can hold its place in the world, or can do any work really worth doing, unless it stands ready to guard its right with an armed hand. — Theodore Roosevelt

I hate a man who skins the land. — Theodore Roosevelt

Constructive change offers the best method for avoiding destructive change. — Theodore Roosevelt

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. — Theodore Roosevelt

The chief factor in any man's success or failure must be his own character. — Theodore Roosevelt

There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake. — Theodore Roosevelt

Performance should be made square with promise. — Theodore Roosevelt

The liar is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth. — Theodore Roosevelt

The worst lesson that can be taught to a man is to rely upon others and to whine over his sufferings — Theodore Roosevelt

Unrestrained greed means the ruin of the great woods and the drying up of the sources of the rivers. — Theodore Roosevelt

The one being abhorrent to the powers above the earth and under them is the hyphenated American — Theodore Roosevelt

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! — Theodore Roosevelt

Poverty is a bitter thing; but it is not as bitter as the existence of restless vacuity and physical, moral, and intellectual flabbiness, to which those doom themselves who elect to spend all their years in that vainest of all vain pursuits-the pursuit of mere pleasure as a sufficient end in itself. — Theodore Roosevelt

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. — Theodore Roosevelt

The great virtue of my radicalism lies in the fact that I am perfectly ready, if necessary, to be radical on the conservative side. — Theodore Roosevelt

We have had a hard and somewhat dangerous but very successful trip. No less than six weeks were spent... forcing our way down through what seemed a literally endless succession of rapids and cataracts. For forty-eight days we saw no human being. In passing these rapids we lost five of the seven canoes... One of our best men lost his life in the rapids. Under the strain one of the men went completely bad... and when punished by the sergeant he... murdered the sergeant and fled into the wilderness... We have put on the map a river about 1500 kilometres in length... Until now its upper course has been utterly unknown to every one, and its lower course... unknown to all cartographers. — Theodore Roosevelt

No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with the gratitude to the Giver of good who has blessed us. — Theodore Roosevelt

No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough so after his day's work is done he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community, to help in carrying the general load. — Theodore Roosevelt

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young. — Theodore Roosevelt

Absence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering. — Theodore Roosevelt

It is a great mistake to think that the extremist is a better man than the moderate. Usually the difference is not that he is morally stronger, but that he is intellectually weaker. He is not more virtuous. He is simply more foolish. — Theodore Roosevelt

The very reason why we object to state ownership, that it puts a stop to individual initiative and to the healthy development of personal responsibility, is the reason why we object to an unsupervised, unchecked monopolistic control in private hands. We urge control and supervision by the nation as an antidote to the movement for state socialism. Those who advocate total lack of regulation, those who advocate lawlessness in the business world, themselves give the strongest impulse to what I believe would be the deadening movement toward unadulterated state socialism. — Theodore Roosevelt

We here in America, hold in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years; and shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of men. — Theodore Roosevelt

My hat's in the ring. The fight is on and I'm stripped to the buff. — Theodore Roosevelt

To every man who faces life with real desire to do his part in everything, I appeal for a study of the Bible. — Theodore Roosevelt

Nine tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time. — Theodore Roosevelt

The chase is among the best of all national pastimes; it cultivates that vigorous manliness for the lack of which in a nation, as in an individual, the possession of no other qualities can possibly atone. — Theodore Roosevelt

Envy is as evil a thing as arrogance. — Theodore Roosevelt

A healthy-minded boy should feel hearty contempt for the coward and even more hearty indignation for the boy who bullies girls or small boys, or tortures animals. — Theodore Roosevelt

Right here let me make as vigorous a plea as I know how in favor of saying nothing that we do not mean, and of acting without hesitation up to whatever we say. A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick
you will go far.' If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power. In private life there are few beings more obnoxious than the man who is always loudly boasting; and if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words his position becomes absolutely contemptible. So it is with the nation. It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and, above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples. — Theodore Roosevelt

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past. — Theodore Roosevelt

The greatest gift life has to offer is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing. — Theodore Roosevelt

There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm. — Theodore Roosevelt

It is not only highly desirable but necessary that there should be legislation which shall carefully shield the interests of wage-workers, and which shall discriminate in favor of the honest and humane employer by removing the disadvantage under which he stands when compared with unscrupulous competitors who have no conscience and will do right only under fear of punishment. — Theodore Roosevelt

Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive. — Theodore Roosevelt

I represent the public, not public opinion. — Theodore Roosevelt

To hell with the Constitution when people want coal! — Theodore Roosevelt

There has never yet been a person in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering. — Theodore Roosevelt

To borrow a simile from the football field, we believe that men must play fair, but that there must be no shirking, and that the success can only come to the player who hits the line hard. — Theodore Roosevelt

The President and the Congress are all very well in their way. They can say what they think they think, but it rests with the Supreme Court to decide what they have really thought. — Theodore Roosevelt

Each man should have all he earns, whether by brain or body; and the director, the great industrial leader, is one of the greatest of earners, and should have a proportional reward; but no man should live on the earnings of another, and there should not be too gross inequality between service and reward. — Theodore Roosevelt

No ability, no strength and force, no power of intellect or power of wealth, shall avail us, if we have not the root of right living in us. — Theodore Roosevelt

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head. — Theodore Roosevelt

The sons of all of us will pay in the future if we of the present do not do justice in the present. — Theodore Roosevelt

The man who really counts in the world is the doer, not the mere critic
the man who actually does the work, even if roughly and imperfectly, not the man who only talks or writes about how it ought to be done. — Theodore Roosevelt

We shall make mistakes; and if we let these mistakes frighten us from our work we shall show ourselves weaklings. — Theodore Roosevelt

There are many occasions when the highest praise one can receive is the attack of some given scoundrel. — Theodore Roosevelt

The wild life of today is not ours to do with as we please. The original stock was given to us in trust for the benefit both of the present and the future. We must render an accounting of this trust to those who come after us. — Theodore Roosevelt

It either is or ought to be evident to everyone that business has to prosper before anyone can get any benefit from it. — Theodore Roosevelt

If we lose the virile, manly qualities, and sink into a nation of mere hucksters, putting gain over national honor, and subordinating everything to mere ease of life, then we shall indeed reach a condition worse than that of the ancient civilizations in the years of their decay. — Theodore Roosevelt

Freemasonry must stand upon the Rock of Truth, religion, political, social, and economic. Nothing is so worthy of its care as freedom in all its aspects. "Free" is the most vital part of Freemasonry. It means freedom of thought and expression, freedom of spiritual and religious ideals, freedom from oppression, freedom from ignorance, superstition, vice and bigotry, freedom to acquire and possess property, to go and come at pleasure, and to rise or fall according to will of ability. — Theodore Roosevelt

The very pathetic myth of "beneficent nature" could not deceive even the least wise being if he once saw for himself the iron cruelty of life in the tropics. Of course "nature"
in common parlance a wholly inaccurate term, by the way, especially when used as if to express a single entity
is entirely ruthless, no less so as regards types than as regards individuals, and entirely indifferent to good or evil, and works out her ends or no ends with utter disregard of pain and woe. — Theodore Roosevelt

The civilized people of today look back with horror at their medieval ancestors who wantonly destroyed great works of art or sat slothfully by while they destroyed. We have passed this stage ... Here in the U.S. we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping grounds, we pollute the air, we destroy our forests and exterminate fishes, birds and mammals - not to speak of vulgarizing charming landscapes with hideous advertisements. But at best it looks as if our people were awakening. — Theodore Roosevelt

When I hear of the destruction of a species, I feel just as if all the works of some great writer have perished. — Theodore Roosevelt

We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources ... But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil and the gas are exhausted. — Theodore Roosevelt

The great corporations which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State, and the State not only has the right to control them, but it is duty bound to control them wherever the need of such control is shown. — Theodore Roosevelt

The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first and love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life. — Theodore Roosevelt

Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled. — Theodore Roosevelt

The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others — Theodore Roosevelt

I have always been fond of Josh Billings's remark that "it is much easier to be a harmless dove than a wise serpent." There are plenty of decent legislators, and plenty of able legislators; but the blamelessness and the fighting edge are not always combined. Both qualities are necessary for the man who is to wage active battle against the powers that prey. — Theodore Roosevelt