Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

Quotes

• Put out the light.

• Do what you can with what you have, where you are.

• While my interest in natural history has added very little to my sum of achievement, it has added immeasurably to my sum of enjoyment in life.

• Practical efficiency is common, and lofty idealism not uncommon; it is the combination which is necessary, and the combination is rare

• Far better is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

• Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

• There is a homely old adage which runs: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." If the American nation will speak softly, and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far.

• Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy.

• A just war is in the long run far better for a nation's soul than the most prosperous peace obtained by acquiescence in wrong or injustice.

• 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 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 up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for 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 he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

• Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft!

• Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

• When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'

• When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.

• Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.

• No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.

• Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

• Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.

• Speak softly and carry a big stick.

• The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.