Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt (27 October 1858 - 6 January 1919) American politician; 26th President of the United States

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I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
- Speech at the Hamilton Club (April 10, 1899)

Far better it is 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 that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
- Speech at the Hamilton Club (April 10, 1899)

I'm as strong as a bull moose and you can use me to the limit.
- Letter to Marcus Alonzo Hannah (June 27, 1900)

No man is justified in doing evil on the grounds of expediency.
- The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900)

There is a homely adage which runs "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." If the American nation will speak softly and yet build and keep at a pitch of highest training a thoroughly efficient Navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far.
- Speech at Minnesota State Fair (September 2, 1901)

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.
- Speech at Springfield, Illinois (July 4, 1903)

The men with the muckrakes 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.
- Speech in Washington, D.C. (April 14, 1906)

To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.
- Message to Congress (December 3, 1907)

"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 the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."
- Paris Sorbonne, 1910

Every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.
- Speech at Osawatomie (August 31, 1910)

We wish to control big business so as to secure among other things good wages for the wage-workers and reasonable prices for the consumers. Wherever in any business the prosperity of the businessman is obtained by lowering the wages of his workmen and charging an excessive price to the consumers we wish to interfere and stop such practices. We will not submit to that kind of prosperity any more than we will submit to prosperity obtained by swindling investors or getting unfair advantages over business rivals.
- Source: We Stand At Armageddon, 1912

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.
- Kansas City Star (May 7, 1918)

I believe in corporations. They are indispensable instruments of our modern civilization; but I believe that they should be so supervised and so regulated that they shall act for the interest of the community as a whole.

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country.

Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteouness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy.

There is not one among us in whom a devil does not dwell; at sometime, on some point, that devil masters each of us; he who has never failed has never been tempted; but the man who does in the end conquer, who does painfully retrace the steps of his slipping, why he shows that he has been tried in the fire and not found wanting. It is not having been in the Dark House, but having left it, that counts.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'

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