Theodore Roosevelt
It is not the critic who counts;not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them 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, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;but who does actually strive to do the deeds;who knows 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, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt
I plead for a closer and wider and deeper study of the Bible, so that our people may be in fact as well as in theory, "doers of the word and not hearers only."
-Theodore Roosevelt
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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.
-Theodore Roosevelt
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
-Theodore Roosevelt
Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them. - If they gradually grow to feel that the whole world is nothing but muck their power of usefulness is gone.
-Theodore Roosevelt
Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
-Theodore Roosevelt
The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.
-Theodore Roosevelt
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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.
-Theodore Roosevelt
No man is justified in doing evil on the grounds of expediency.
-Theodore Roosevelt
If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world.
-Theodore Roosevelt
Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot;but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.