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Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt


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

Believe you can and you're halfway there.
– 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
A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.
– Theodore Roosevelt
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.
– Theodore Roosevelt
A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.
– Theodore Roosevelt
A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Absence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Appraisals are where you get together with your team leader and agree what an outstanding member of the team you are, how much your contribution has been valued, what massive potential you have and, in recognition of all this, would you mind having your salary halved.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.
– Theodore Roosevelt
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.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.
– Theodore Roosevelt
I am a part of everything that I have read.
– Theodore Roosevelt
I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.
– 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
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.
– Theodore Roosevelt
I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.
– Theodore Roosevelt
I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also.
– Theodore Roosevelt
If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.
– 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
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
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
– Theodore Roosevelt
It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Laws are essential emanations from the self-poised character of God; they radiate from the sun to the circling edge of creation. Verily, the mighty Lawgiver hath subjected himself unto laws.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.
– Theodore Roosevelt
No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.
– Theodore Roosevelt
No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it.
– Theodore Roosevelt
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.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.
– Theodore Roosevelt
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.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.
– Theodore Roosevelt
People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
– Theodore Roosevelt
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.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.
– Theodore Roosevelt
The American people abhor a vacuum.
– Theodore Roosevelt
The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
– 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
The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.
– Theodore Roosevelt
The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
– 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
The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.
– Theodore Roosevelt
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
– Theodore Roosevelt
The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is thinking most often and in the loudest voice.
– Theodore Roosevelt
The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.
– Theodore Roosevelt
The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
– Theodore Roosevelt
The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.
– Theodore Roosevelt
The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.
– Theodore Roosevelt
The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.
– 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
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.
– Theodore Roosevelt
The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.
– Theodore Roosevelt
There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 percent. Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.
– Theodore Roosevelt
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public.
– Theodore Roosevelt
To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
– Theodore Roosevelt
To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase it's usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very properity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.
– Theodore Roosevelt
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.
– Theodore Roosevelt
With self-discipline most anything is possible.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
– Theodore Roosevelt
I am delighted to have you play football. I believe in rough, manly sports. But I do not believe in them if they degenerate into the sole end of any one's existence. I don't want you to sacrifice standing well in your studies to any over-athleticism; and I need not tell you that character counts for a great deal more than either intellect or body in winning success in life. Athletic proficiency is a mighty good servant, and like so many other good servants, a mighty bad master.
– Theodore Roosevelt
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, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best, knows 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 know neither victory nor defeat.
– Theodore Roosevelt
I have always been fond of the West African proverb: Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
– 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 much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
– Theodore Roosevelt
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'
– Theodore Roosevelt
When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.
– 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
No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Justice consists not in being neutral between right and wrong, but in finding out the right and upholding it, wherever found, against the wrong.
– Theodore Roosevelt
The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.
– Theodore Roosevelt
The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.
– Theodore Roosevelt
It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.
– 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
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.
– Theodore Roosevelt