Inspirational Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Inspirational Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Colleges, Education, Universities

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

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

Some reformers may urge that in the ages distant future, patriotism, like the habit of monogamous marriage, will become a needless and obsolete virtue; but just at present the man who loves other countries as much as he does his own is quite as noxious a member of society as the man who loves other women as much as he loves his wife. Love of country is an elemental virtue, like love of home.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Patriotism

Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Miscellaneous

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

The only true solution of our political and social problems lies in cultivating everywhere the spirit of brotherhood, of fellow feeling and understanding between man and man, and the willingness to treat a man as a man.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Friendship

My position as regards the monied interests can be put in a few words. In every civilized society property rights must be carefully safeguarded; ordinarily and in the great majority of cases, human rights and property rights are fundamentally and in the long run, identical; but when it clearly appears that there is a real conflict between them, human rights must have the upper hand; for property belongs to man and not man to property.
—Theodore Roosevelt

There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Effort

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

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

When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer “present” or “not guilty.”
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Politics, Politicians

The men with the muck-rake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Media

You cannot create prosperity by law. Sustained thrift, industry, application, intelligence, are the only things that ever do, or ever will, create prosperity. But you can very easily destroy prosperity by law.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Prosperity

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Character

Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Freedom

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

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

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

In this world the one thing supremely worth having is the opportunity to do well and worthily a piece of work of vital consequence to the welfare of mankind.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Opportunities

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

It is of little use for us to pay lip-loyalty to the mighty men of the past unless we sincerely endeavor to apply to the problems of the present precisely the qualities which in other crises enabled the men of that day to meet those crises.
—Theodore Roosevelt

The one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight… It should be the growing nation with a future which takes the long look ahead.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Foresight

No nation deserves to exist if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and this without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth of a heartless and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged indulgence in luxury and soft, effortless ease, or to the deification of a warped and twisted sentimentality.”
—Theodore Roosevelt

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

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: America

Conservation and rural-life policies are really two sides of the same policy; and down at bottom this policy rests upon the fundamental law that neither man nor nation can prosper unless, in dealing with the present, thought is steadily taken for the future.
—Theodore Roosevelt

The true Christian is the true citizen, lofty of purpose, resolute in endeavor, ready for a hero’s deeds, but never looking down on his task because it is cast in the day of small things; scornful of baseness, awake to his own duties as well as to his rights, following the higher law with reverence, and in this world doing all that in his power lies, so that when death comes he may feel that mankind is in some degree better because he lived.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Christianity

The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Politics

We cannot afford merely to sit down and deplore the evils of city life as inevitable, when cities are constantly growing, both absolutely and relatively. We must set ourselves vigorously about the task of improving them; and this task is now well begun.
—Theodore Roosevelt

A man must first care for his own household before he can be of use to the state. But no matter how well he cares for his household, he is not a good citizen unless he also takes thought of the state. In the same way, a great nation must think of its own internal affairs; and yet it cannot substantiate its claim to be a great nation unless it also thinks of its position in the world at large.
—Theodore Roosevelt

I wish all Americans would realize that American politics is world politics.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: America

The American people abhor a vacuum.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: America

When we control business in the public interest we are also bound to encourage it in the public interest or it will be a bad thing for everybody and worst of all for those on whose behalf the control is nominally exercised.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Business

Our first duty is to war against dishonesty … war against it in public life, and … war against it in business life. Corruption in every form is the arch enemy of this Republic, the arch enemy of free institutions and of government by the people, an even more dangerous enemy than the open lawlessness of violence, because it works in hidden and furtive fashion.
—Theodore Roosevelt

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

In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile…We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
—Theodore Roosevelt

At least fail while daring greatly
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Courage

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

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

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