Quotes from Theodore Roosevelt

So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat

Is it only in the army in the Philippines that Americans sometimes commit deeds that cause all other Americans to regret? [Theodore Roosevelt 1901 relating reports of water torture in the Philippines to lynching in the south]

I am no advocate of senseless and excessive cramming in studies, but a boy should work, and should work hard, at his lessons -- in the first place, for the sake of what he will learn, and in the next place, for the sake of the effect upon his own character of resolutely settling down to learn it. Shiftlessness, slackness, indifference in studying, are almost certain to mean inability to get on in other walks of life.

Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.

It is a mere truism to say that every nation, whether in America or anywhere else, which desires to maintain its freedom, its independence, must ultimately realize that the right of such independence cannot be separated from the responsibility of making good use of it.

To befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business & corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

Credit should go with the performance of duty, and not with what is very often the accident of glory.

It is never worth while to absolutely exhaust one's self or to take big chances unless for an adequate object.

It is out of the question for our people to rise by treading down any of their own number.

at the outset almost every man is frightened when he goes into action, but that the course to follow is for the man to keep such a grip on himself that he can act just as if he was not frightened. After this is kept up long enough it changes from pretense to reality, and the man does in very fact become fearless by sheer dint of practicing fearlessness when he does not feel it.

A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as helpless.

Dreams are a dime a dozen. it's their execution that counts

Books are almost as individual as friends. There is no earthly use in laying down general laws about them. Some meet the needs of one person, and some of another; and each person should beware of the booklover's besetting sin, of what Mr. Edgar Allan Poe calls 'the mad pride of intellectuality,' taking the shape of arrogant pity for the man who does not like the same kind of books.

More and more it is evident that the State, and if necessary the nation, has got to possess the right of supervision and control as regards the great corporations which are its creatures.

As regards the extraordinary prizes, the element of luck is the determining factor.

I now believe as sincerely as ever, for all the laws that the wit of man can devise will never make a man a worthy citizen unless he has within himself the right stuff, unless he has self-reliance, energy, courage, the power of insisting on his own rights and the sympathy that makes him regardful of the rights of others.

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.

There were all kinds of things of which I was afraid at first, ranging from grizzly bears to "mean" horses and gunfighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid. Most men can have the same experience if they choose.

At times a man must cut loose from his associates and stand alone for a great cause; but the necessity for such action is almost as rare as the necessity for revolution.

Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.

I have only a second rate brain, but I think I have a capacity for action.

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.

The curse of every ancient civilization was that its men in the end became unable to fight. Materialism, luxury, safety, even sometimes an almost modern sentimentality, weakened the fibre of each civilized race in turn; each became in the end a nation of pacifists, and then each was trodden under foot by some ruder people that had kept that virile fighting power the lack of which makes all other virtues useless and sometimes even harmful.

In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The second best thing is the wrong thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.