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
Recommended Reading
- ‘The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt‘ by Edmund Morris
- ‘An Autobiography‘ by Theodore Roosevelt
- ‘Theodore Roosevelt‘ by Lewis L. Gould
- ‘Theodore Rex‘ by Edmund Morris
- ‘The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey‘ by Candice Millard
Inspirational Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)
After the war, and until the day of his death, his position on almost every public question was either mischievous or ridiculous, and usually both.
—Theodore Roosevelt
A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Democracy
The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Government
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
Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Work
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: Criticism, Courage, Defeat, Mistakes, Achieve, Risk, Success, Truth, Failures, Doing Your Best, Accomplishment, Challenges
Unless a man is master of his soul, all other kinds of mastery amount to little.
—Theodore Roosevelt
To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Education
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
Unless a man believes in applied morality he is certain to be merely a noxious public servant.
—Theodore Roosevelt
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
A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Usefullness
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Secrets of Success, Value of Time, Time Management, Effort, Action, Doing Your Best, Humankind, Simplicity
Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Miscellaneous
It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
—Theodore Roosevelt
There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 % Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.
—Theodore Roosevelt
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, Law
If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base and sordid creature, no matter how successful.
—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
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
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
Instruction in things moral is most necessary to the making of the highest type of citizenship.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Teaching
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Education, Colleges, Universities
There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders for the nation in peace and war for generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Class
The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.
—Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Boldness, Crime
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 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
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
Everything is un-American that tends either to government by a plutocracy or government by a mob. To divide along the lines of section or caste or creed is un-American. All privileges based on wealth, and all enmity to honest men merely because they are wealthy, are un-American-both of them equally so. 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: Sleep, Relaxation, America
Yes, Haven, most of us enjoy preaching, and Ive got such a bully pulpit!
—Theodore Roosevelt
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