Inspirational Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Inspirational Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

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: Patriotism, Reason

To sit home, read one’s favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men’s doing.
—Theodore Roosevelt

At sometime in our lives a devil dwells within us, causes heartbreaks, confusion and troubles, then dies.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Religion, Evil

Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Wilderness

Our loyalty is due entirely to the United States. It is due to the President only and exactly to the degree in which he efficiently serves the United States. It is our duty to support him when he serves the United States well. It is our duty to oppose him when he serves it badly. This is true about Mr. Wilson now and it has been true about all our Presidents in the past. It is our duty at all times to tell the truth about the President and about every one else, save in the cases where to tell the truth at the moment would benefit the public enemy.
—Theodore Roosevelt

While the Jews of the United States have remained loyal to their faith, and their race traditions, they have become indissolubly incorporated in the great army of American Citizenship.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Jews

We demand that big business give people a square deal; in return we must insist that when anyone engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right, he shall himself be given a square deal.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Business

My view was that every executive officer, and above all every executive officer in high position, was a steward of the people bound actively and affirmatively to do all he could for the people, and not to content himself with the negative merit of keeping his talents undamaged in a napkin. I declined to adopt the view that what was imperatively necessary for the Nation could not be done by the President unless he could find some specific authorization to do it. My belief was that it was not only his right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the Nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws. Under this interpretation of executive power I did and caused to be done many things not previously done by the President and the heads of the departments. I did not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power. In other words, I acted for the public welfare, I acted for the common well-being of all our people, whenever and in whatever manner was necessary, unless prevented by direct constitutional or legislative prohibition.
—Theodore Roosevelt

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts about reality.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Belief, Attitude, Doubt

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Humankind, Simplicity, Time Management, Effort, Secrets of Success, Value of Time, Doing Your Best, Action

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

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.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Help

The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants them to do, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Business, Leaders, Leadership, Teamwork

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

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

Speak softly, but carry a big stick.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Communication

Greatness means strife for nation and man alike. A soft, easy life is not worth living, if it impairs the fiber of brain and heart and muscle. We must dare to be great; and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage… We are face to face with our destiny and we must meet it with a high and resolute courage. 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.
—Theodore Roosevelt

We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted…So any nation which in its youth lives only for the day, reaps without sowing, and consumes without husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal whose labor could with difficulty find him the bare means of life.
—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

Unless a man is master of his soul, all other kinds of mastery amount to little.
—Theodore Roosevelt

There is a point, of course, where a man must take the isolated peak and break with all his associates for clear principle; but until that time comes he must work, if he would be of use, with men as they are. As long as the good in them overbalances the evil, let him work with them for the best that can be obtained.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Failure, Principles

No man needs sympathy because he has to work. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Life, Doing, Sympathy, Society, Work, Best

There is a delight in the hardy life of the open. There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm. The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value. Conservation means development as much as it does protection.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Wilderness

Under government ownership corruption can flourish just as rankly as under private ownership.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Government

All the resources we need are in the mind.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Mind, The Mind

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Love, Win, Success & Failure, Society, Success, People

Every man among us is more fit to meet the duties and responsibilities of citizenship because of the perils over which, in the The Past nation has triumphed; because of the blood and sweat and tears, the labor and the anguish, through which, in the days that have gone, our forefathers moved on to triumph.
—Theodore Roosevelt

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often and in the loudest voice.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Politics, Thinking

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

The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight; that he shall not be a mere passenger, but shall do his share in the work that each generation of us finds ready to hand; and, furthermore, that in doing his work he shall show, not only the capacity for sturdy self-help, but also self-respecting regard for the rights of others.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Duty

Wondering Whom to Read Next?

• Woodrow Wilson American Head of State
• Charles G. Dawes American Diplomat, Politician
• Franklin D. Roosevelt American Head of State
• Herbert Hoover American Statesman
• Richard Nixon American Head of State
• Lyndon B. Johnson American Head of State
• Calvin Coolidge American Head of State
• Jimmy Carter American Head of State
• Ronald Reagan American Head of State
• George H. W. Bush American Head of State