Inspirational Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Inspirational Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do. That is character.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Awareness, Opinion, Acceptance, Realization, Character

Pray not for lighter burdens, but for stronger backs.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Prayer

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

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

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

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Mistakes

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

Every man has a right to one country. He has a right to love and serve that country and to feel that it is absolutely his country and that he has in it every right possessed by anyone else. It is our duty to require the man of German blood who is an American citizen to give up all allegiance to Germany wholeheartedly and without on his part any mental reservation whatever. If he does this it becomes no less our duty to give him the full rights of an American, including our loyal respect and friendship without on our part any mental reservation whatever. The duties are reciprocal, and from the standpoint of American patriotism one is as important as the other.
—Theodore Roosevelt

The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Insults, Life

He has been called a mediocre man; but this is unwarranted flattery. He was a politician of monumental littleness.
—Theodore Roosevelt

The worst of all fears is the fear of living.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Fear, Anxiety

The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.
—Theodore Roosevelt

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

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Politics

The need for collecting large campaign funds would vanish if Congress provided an appropriation for the proper and legitimate expenses of each of the great national parties, an appropriation ample enough to meet the necessity for thorough organization and machinery, which requires a large expenditure of money. Then the stipulation should be made that no party receiving campaign funds from the Treasury should accept more than a fixed amount from any individual subscriber or donor; and the necessary publicity for receipts and expenditures could without difficulty be provided.
—Theodore Roosevelt

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

Yes, Haven, most of us enjoy preaching, and Ive got such a bully pulpit!
—Theodore Roosevelt

Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihoodthe virtues that made America. 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.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Peace, Wealth

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

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Defeat, Truth, Mistakes, Risk, Accomplishment, Courage, Challenges, Success, Criticism, Doing Your Best, Failures

It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Lawyers

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

Here in the United States we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping-grounds, we pollute the air, we destroy forests, and exterminate fishes, birds, and mammalsnot to speak of vulgarizing charming landscapes with hideous advertisements. But at last it looks as if our people were awakening. Many leading men, Americans and Canadians, are doing all they can for the Conservation movement.
—Theodore Roosevelt

Absence and death are the same—only that in death there is no suffering.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Absence

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

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

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

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

Short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things…
—Theodore Roosevelt

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.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Action, Decisions, Procrastination

The plea of good intentions is not one that can be allowed to have much weight in passing historical judgment upon a man whose wrong-headedness and distorted way of looking at things produced, or helped to produce, such incalculable evil; there is a wide political applicability in the remark attributed to a famous Texan, to the effect that he might, in the end, pardon a man who shot him on purpose, but that he would surely never forgive one who did so accidentally.
—Theodore Roosevelt

In doing your work in the great world, it is a safe plan to follow a rule I once heard on the football field: Don’t flinch, don’t fall; hit the line hard”.”
—Theodore Roosevelt

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

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

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

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

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

If we lose the virile, manly qualities, and sink into a nation of mere hucksters, putting gain over national honor, and subordinating everything to mere ease of life, then we shall indeed reach a condition worse than that of the ancient civilizations in the years of their decay.
—Theodore Roosevelt

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Action

The idea that our natural resources were inexhaustible still obtained, and there was as yet no real knowledge of their extent and condition. The relation of the conservation of natural resources to the problems of National welfare and National efficiency had not yet dawned on the public mind. The reclamation of arid public lands in the West was still a matter for private enterprise alone; and our magnificent river system, with its superb possibilities for public usefulness, was dealt with by the National Government not as a unit, but as a disconnected series of pork-barrel problems, whose only real interest was in their effect on the reelection or defeat of a Congressman here and therea theory which, I regret to say, still obtains.
—Theodore Roosevelt

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