Inspirational Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Inspirational Quotations by Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919,) nicknamed Teddy, was an American politician who served as the popular 26th president of the United States 1901–09. The first American to win a Nobel Prize in 1906, he was also an author, naturalist, explorer, and historian.

Born in New York City of Dutch and Scottish descent, Roosevelt studied at Harvard. He gained national celebrity as the organizer of the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War (1898.) He became Republican governor of New York State in 1899, and vice president in 1901. Roosevelt became president after the assassination of William McKinley.

A vigorous progressive, Roosevelt moved to control monopolies through anti-trust legislation. Overseas, he expanded America’s power and prestige, gaining the Panama Canal, and taking an increasing role in world affairs. His intervention after the Russo-Japanese War earned him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize.

After retiring in 1909, Roosevelt went on a hunting trip in Central Africa. He returned to America and was drawn into politics. He disagreed with the policies of his successor, President William Taft. Roosevelt challenged Taft for the presidency in 1912 as leader of the National Progressive Party (Bull Moose Party.) The ensuing Republican split produced a Democratic victory, and Woodrow Wilson became president.

Subsequently, Roosevelt explored the Rio da Dúvida (“River of Doubt”) in Brazil, and he campaigned for U.S. intervention during World War I. A gifted scholar, he composed more than thirty books on such diverse topics as American ideals, ranching, hunting, and zoology.

The teddy bear is named after Theodore Roosevelt—the result of his refusal to shoot a bear cub during a hunting trip. Too, Roosevelt was a fifth cousin of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) and an uncle of FDR’s wife Eleanor Roosevelt.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Theodore Roosevelt

Inspirational Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards. More than that no man is entitled to, and less than that no man shall have.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Patriotism

I want to see you shoot the way you shout.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: The Military

It is better to be faithful than famous.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Loyalty

My hat’s in the ring. The fight is on and I’m stripped to the buff.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Competition

Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Idealism, Ideals

Of all the officers of the Government, those of the Department of Justice should be kept most free from any suspicion of improper action on partisan or factional grounds, so that there shall be gradually a growth, even though a slow growth, in the knowledge that the Federal courts and the representatives of the Federal Department of Justice insist on meting out even-handed justice to all.
—Theodore Roosevelt

Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell em, “Certainly I can!”—and get busy and find out how to do it.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Success & Failure, Success

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Fail, Failure

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

It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks, and the greatest of all prizes are those connected with the home.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Risk, Success

I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use our natural resources, but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or rob by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Wildlife

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Evil

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Government

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
Topics: Leadership, Society, Leaders

Unless a man believes in applied morality he is certain to be merely a noxious public servant.
—Theodore Roosevelt

To waste and 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.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Wildlife, Usefullness

Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Work

The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all. When the sturdy Roman plebeian, who lived by his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows formed in war the terrible Roman legion, had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and who directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the republic was at hand, and nothing could save it. The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Law

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.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Americans

There is a homely old adage which runs: “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far”.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Power, Virtue, One liners

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
Topics: Words

The weakling and the coward are out of place in a strong and free community. In a republic like ours the governing class is composed of the strong men who take the trouble to do the work of government; and if you are too timid or too fastidious or too careless to do your part in this work, then you forfeit your right to be considered one of the governing and you become one of the governed insteadone of the driven cattle of the political arena.
—Theodore Roosevelt

If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Welfare

I desire to see in this country the decent men strong and the strong men decent, and until we get that combination in pretty good shape, we are not going to be by any means as successful as we should be.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Goodness

No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his body, to risk his well-being, to risk his life, in a great cause.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Reason, Patriotism

Men who fear the strenuous life believe in that cloistered life which saps the hardy virtues in a nation as it saps them in the individual, or else they are wedded to the base spirit of gain and greed which recognize in commercialism the be-all and end-all of national life, instead of realizing that, though an indispensable element, it is, after all, but one of many elements that go to make up true national greatness
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Wilderness

Let us show, not merely in great crises, but in every day affairs of life, qualities of practical intelligence, of hardihood and endurance, and above all, the power of devotion to a lofty ideal.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Ideals

The cornerstone of this Republic, as of all free government, is respect for and obedience to the law. Where we permit the law to be defied or evaded, whether by rich man or poor man, by black man or white, we are by just so much weakening the bonds of our civilization and increasing the chances of its overthrow, and of the substitution therefore of a system in which there shall be violent alternations of anarchy and tyranny.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Laws

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

Instruction in things moral is most necessary to the making of the highest type of citizenship.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Teaching