Theodore Roosevelt

With self-discipline most anything is possible.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
– Theodore Roosevelt

This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place
for all of us to live in.
– Theodore Roosevelt

All the resources we need are in the mind.
– Theodore Roosevelt

It is true of the Nation, as of the individual, that the greatest doer must also be a great
dreamer.
– Theodore Roosevelt

When you play, play hard; when you work, don’t play at all.
– Theodore Roosevelt

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

No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Each one must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune.
– Theodore Roosevelt

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary
importance, and that in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.
– Theodore Roosevelt

I am only an average man, but by George, I work harder at it than the average man.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Knowing what’s right doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.
– Theodore Roosevelt

This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail. It is the
crooked man who succeeds who is a threat to this country.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
– Theodore Roosevelt

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

The reason fat men are good natured is they can neither fight nor run.
– Theodore Roosevelt

No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man’s permission when
we require him to obey it. Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
– Theodore Roosevelt

To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
– Theodore Roosevelt

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants
done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
– Theodore Roosevelt

No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and
away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
– Theodore Roosevelt

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

I urge you to study law. A man who never graduated from school might steal from a freight
car. But a man who graduates as a lawyer might steal the whole railroad.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.
– Theodore Roosevelt

There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to
him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother.
– Theodore Roosevelt

The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.
– Theodore Roosevelt

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.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that
true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.
– Theodore Roosevelt

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

Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish
the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children. Do
not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.
– Theodore Roosevelt

If you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
– 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

Into a woman’s keeping is committed the destiny of the generations to come.
– Theodore Roosevelt

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along
with people.
– 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

Great thoughts speak only to the thoughful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.
– Theodore Roosevelt

I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a
great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.
– 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

The worst of all fears is the fear of living.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Working women have the same need to protection that working men have; the ballot is as
necessary for one class as to the other; we do not believe that with the two sexes there is
identity of function; but we do believe there should be equality of right.
– Theodore Roosevelt

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit
for a month.
– Theodore Roosevelt

In life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is: hit the line hard.
– Theodore Roosevelt

We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life,
but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who
will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by
failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer too much,
because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
– Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life, A Speech before the Hamilton Club, 1899

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer “Present”
or “Not guilty.”
– 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 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 up short again and again, because there is no effort without
error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends
himself for 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 he fails while daring greatly, so that
his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president.
– Theodore Roosevelt

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
– Theodore Roosevelt

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
– Theodore Roosevelt

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.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell ’em, “Certainly I can!” Then get busy and
find out how to do it.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Believe you can and you’re halfway there.
– Theodore Roosevelt

The mother is the one supreme asset of national life; she is more important by far than the
successful statesman, or businessman, or artist, or scientist.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave
the country.
– Theodore Roosevelt

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you
can do is nothing.
– 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

Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.
– Theodore Roosevelt

90% of the work in this country is done by people who don’t feel good.
– Theodore Roosevelt

There are good men and bad men of all nationalities, creeds and colors; and if this world of
ours is ever to become what we hope some day it may become, it must be by the general
recognition that the man’s heart and soul, the man’s worth and actions, determine his
standing.
– Theodore Roosevelt

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.
– Theodore Roosevelt