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)
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
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