Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States.
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| Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. ― Theodore Roosevelt |
Here is a collection of Theodore Roosevelt most famous quotes: Theodore Roosevelt quotes about leadership, courage, character, failure, success, government, politics, achievement and wisdom. Quotes and sayings on work, knowledge, education, morality, nature, perseverance and tenacity by Theodore Roosevelt.
Theodore Roosevelt Quotes and Sayings
Believe you can and you're halfway there.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
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.
When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
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.
Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.... 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.
People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.
To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.
Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.
Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.
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.
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.
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| Believe you can and you're halfway there. ― Theodore Roosevelt |
Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
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.
We can have no '50-50' allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.
In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.
If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.
Absence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering.
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 much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
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.
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.
Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don't have the strength.
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.
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.
I am a part of everything that I have read.
Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.
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| It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. ― 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.
I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.
Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.
I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also.
When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.
A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
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.
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.
A man who has never gone to school may steal a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
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.
Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft!
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.
The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.
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| When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on. ― Theodore Roosevelt |
Politeness is a sign of dignity, not subservience.
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not Guilty'.
Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.
Comparison is the thief of joy.
If you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.
The reason fat men are good natured is they can neither fight nor run.
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.
Nothing worth having comes easy.
I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.
Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth.
I am only an average man, but by George, I work harder at it than the average man.
Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die; and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life. Both life and death are parts of the same Great Adventure.
A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.
No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned.
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| Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. ― 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.
The joy in life is his who has the heart to demand it.
In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans.
A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.
It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready.
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.
The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.
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.
If given the choice between Righteousness and Peace, I choose Righteousness.
I put myself in the way of things happening, and they happened.
A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.
Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.
I am a strong individualist by personal habit, inheritance, and conviction; but it is a mere matter of common sense to recognize that the State, the community, the citizens acting together, can do a number of things better than if they were left to individual action.
No man is above the law, and no man is below it.
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.
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| People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. ― 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!
The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teaching were removed.
Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground.
No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.
Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official.
It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
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.
It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.
Look Toward the stars but keep your feet firmly on the ground.
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.
Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.
It tires me to talk to rich men. You expect a man of millions, the head of a great industry, to be a man worth hearing; but as a rule they don't know anything outside their own business.
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| Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground. ― Theodore Roosevelt |
It is true of the Nation, as of the individual, that the greatest doer must also be a great dreamer.
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.
Although not a very old man, I have yet lived a great deal in my life, and I have known sorrow too bitter and joy too keen to allow me to become either cast down or elated for more than a very brief period over any success or defeat.
Women should have free access to every field of labor which they care to enter, and when their work is as valuable as that of a man it should be paid as highly.
The American people abhor a vacuum.
Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.
In life, as in football, the principle to follow is to hit the line hard.
The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.
Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.
For those who fight for it life has a flavor the sheltered will never know.
The worst of all fears is the fear of living.
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.
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.
Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords.
The government is us; WE are the government, you and I.
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| Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far. ― Theodore Roosevelt |
The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.
Americanism is a question of principle, of idealism, of character. It is not a matter of birthplace, or creed, or line of descent.
Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough.
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.
No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.
Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.
The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided, but never hit softly.
Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
Complaining about a problem without posing a solution is called whining.
All the resources we need are in the mind.
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.
Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.
The nation behaves well if it treats its natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value.
Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
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| 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 |
Justice consists not in being neutral between right and wrong, but finding out the right and upholding it, wherever found, against the wrong.
The longer I live the more I think of the quality of fortitude.... men who fall, pick themselves up and stumble on, fall again, and are trying to get back up when they die.
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.
Each one must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune.
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.
It was a pleasure to deal with a man of high ideals, who scorned everything mean and base, and who possessed those robust and hardy qualities of body and mind, for the lack of which no merely negative virtue can ever atone.
The lack of power to take joy in outdoor nature is as real a misfortune as the lack of power to take joy in books.
The only man who never makes a mistake is the one one who never does anything.
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
We should not forget that it will be just as important to our descendants to be prosperous in their time as it is to us to be prosperous in our time.
There is quite enough sorrow and shame and suffering and baseness in real life, and there is no need for meeting it unnecessarily in fiction.
It is no use to preach to children if you do not act decently yourself.
The reader, the booklover, must meet his own needs without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs should be.
Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.
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| To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society. ― Theodore Roosevelt |
Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.
I would rather go out of politics having the feeling that I had done what was right than stay in with the approval of all men, knowing in my heart that I have acted as I ought not to.
The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.
With self-discipline most anything is possible.
The greatest gift life has to offer is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing.
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 befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.
It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone, but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching.
There can be no life without change, and to be afraid of what is different or unfamiliar is to be afraid of life.
I have a perfect horror of words that are not backed up by deeds.
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.
Any man who tries to excite class hatred, sectional hate, hate of creeds, any kind of hatred in our community, though he may affect to do it in the interest of the class he is addressing, is in the long run with absolute certainly that class's own worst enemy.
We want men who will fix their eyes on the stars, but who will not forget that their feet must walk on the ground.
Nothing worth having was ever achieved without effort.
Life means change; where there is no change, death comes.
The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.
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.
If we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world. We cannot avoid meeting great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill.
Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.
We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when any one engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal.
There is not one among us in whom a devil does not dwell; at some time, on some point, that devil masters each of us.... It is not having been in the Dark House, but having left it, that counts.
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.
There were all kinds of things I was afraid of at first, ranging from grizzly bears to 'mean' horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.
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.
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.
I represent the public, not public opinion.
A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as helpless.
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.
Dreams are a dime a dozen. it's their execution that counts.
We must dare to be great; and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage.
Any man who has met with success, if he will be frank with himself, must admit that there has been a big element of fortune in the success.
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.
Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions.
It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena: whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.... and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
Americans learn only from catastrophes and not from experience.
There has never yet been a person in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.
We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life.
With soul of flame and temper of steel we must act as our coolest judgment bids us.
The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve them in practical fashion.
The majority in a democracy has no more right to tyrannize over a minority than, under a different system, the latter would to oppress the former.
Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.
We are not building this country of ours for a day. It is to last through the ages.
Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.
So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
Credit should go with the performance of duty, and not with what is very often the accident of glory.
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.
It is never worth while to absolutely exhaust one's self or to take big chances unless for an adequate object.
To befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
But a man whose business is sedentary should get some kind of exercise if he wishes to keep himself in as good physical trim as his brethren who do manual labor.
There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake.
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.
Get action. Do things; be sane; don't fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are and be somebody; get action.
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or how the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.
I grew into manhood thoroughly imbued with the feeling that a man must be respected for what he made of himself.
Far better 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 much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Great thought speak only to the thoughtful mind ,but great actions speak to all mankind.
No amount of charity in spending such fortunes can compensate in any way for the misconduct in acquiring them.
If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States.
In advocating any measure we must consider not only its justice but its practicability.
The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else. We are a nation, not a hodge-podge of foreign nationalities. We are a people, and not a polyglot boarding house.
The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.
It is inexcusable to refuse to work, to work slackly or perversely, or to mar the work of others.
There! you will think this a dreadfully preaching letter! I suppose I have a natural tendency to preach just at present because I am overwhelmed with my work.
Practical efficiency is common, and lofty idealism not uncommon; it is the combination which is necessary, and the combination is rare.
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