Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

Quotes

• I keep my good health by having a very bad temper, kept under good control.

• A stream cannot rise larger than its source.

• Envy is as evil a thing as arrogance.

• It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

• The worst of all fears is the fear of living.

• Americans learn only from catastrophe and not from experience.

• It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it.

• The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled it burns like a consuming flame.

• 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.

• We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when anyone engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal.

• There is quite enough sorrow and shame amd suffering and baseness in real life, and there is no need for meeting it unnecessarily in fiction.

• Our country offers the most wonderful example of democratic government on a giant scale that the world has ever seen; and the peoples of the world are watching to see whether we succeed or fail.

• Let individuals contribute as they desire; but let us prohibit in effective fashion all corporations from making contributions for any political purpose, directly or indirectly.

• Avoid the base hypocrisy of condemning in one man what you pass over in silence when committed by another.

• Success, the real success, does not depend upon the position you hold but upon how you carry yourself in that position.

• It is both foolish and wicked to teach the average man who is not well off that some wrong or injustice has been done him, and that he should hope for redress elsewhere than in his own industry, honesty, and intelligence.

• 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.

• Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty... I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led diffcult lives and led them well.

• In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans.

• If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness.