Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt
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I do not dislike but I certainly have no especial respect or admiration for and no trust in, the typical big moneyed men of my country. I do not regard them as furnishing sound opinion as respects either foreign or domestic business.

When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.

Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind.

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.

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

Character is far more important than intellect in making a man a good citizen or successful at his calling- meaning by character not only such qualities as honesty and truthfulness, but courage, perseverance and self-reliance.

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.

Most of the men had simple souls. They could relate facts, but they said very little about what they dimly felt.

The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom.

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.

People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

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.

No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with the gratitude to the Giver of good who has blessed us.

The light has gone out of my life.

Politeness is a sign of dignity, not subservience.

In the long run, the most unpleasant truth is a safer companion than a pleasant falsehood.

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't be able to sit for a month.

All the resources we need are in the mind.

I would rather risk wearing out than rusting out.

What such a man needs is not courage but nerve control, cool headedness. This he can get only by practice.

We must all either wear out or rust out, every one of us. My choice is to wear out.

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.

No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.

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

Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.

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.

It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.

The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.

When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.

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.

A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.

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

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.

Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.

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.

Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also.

The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.

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

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.

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

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.

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.

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.

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

It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

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

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

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.

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Believe you can and you're halfway there.