Theodore Roosevelt's Quotes, Sayings, and Aphorisms

		T.R.
.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Quotes, Sayings, and Aphorisms
by
Theodore Roosevelt

Who goes there? An American!
Brain and spirit and brawn and heart,
'Twas for him that the nations spared
Each to the years its noblest part;
Till from the Dutch, the Gaul, the Celt
Blossomed the Soul of Roosevelt
Student, trooper, and gentleman
Level-lidded with times and kings,
His the voice for a comrade's cheer
His the ear when the saber rings.
Hero shades of the old days melt
In the quick pulse of Roosevelt.

Hand that is molded to hilt of sword;
Heart that ever has laughed at fear;
Type and pattern of civic pride;
Wit and grace of the cavalier;
All that his fathers prayed and felt
Gleams in the glance of Roosevelt.
Who goes there? An American!
Man to the core- as men should be.
Let him pass through the lines alone,
Type of the Sons of Liberty,
Here where his fathers' fathers dwelt,
Honor and faith for Roosevelt.
- Grace Duffie Boylan

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.
This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.
But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.
The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English- Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian- Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other citizens of the American Republic.
The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.
Addressing the Knights of Columbus in New York City
12 October 1915 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, who 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 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 neither know victory nor defeat. I believe in nationalism as the absolute prerequisite to internationalism. I believe in patriotism as the absolute prerequisite to the larger Americanism. I believe in Americanism because unless our people are good Americans first, America can accomplish little or nothing worth accomplishing for the good of the world as a whole.
The great bulk of my wealthy and educated friends regard me as a dangerous crank. I have only a second rate brain, but I think I have a capacity for action. I keep my good health by having a very bad temper, kept under good control.
A stream cannot rise larger than its source. Life is not easy, and least of all is it easy for either the man or the nation that aspires to great deeds. It is always better to be an original than an imitation.
- Forum, April 1894
We are face to face with our destiny and we must meet it with a high and resolute courage. Envy is as evil a thing as arrogance.
- Letter written in Oyster Bay, New York
September 1, 1903 It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
- Chicago, Illinois
April 10, 1899
The worst of all fears is the fear of living.
- Autobiography, 1913 It is true of the Nation, as of the individual, that the greatest doer must also be the great dreamer.
- Berkeley, 1911 Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor.
- Third Annual
Message to Congress
December 7, 1903
Unless a man is master of his soul, all other kinds of mastery amount to little.
- Ladies' Home Journal
January 1917 Americans learn only from catastrophe and not from experience.
- Autobiography It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it.
- Dakota Territory
July 4, 1886
I took the canal zone and let Congress debate, and while the debate goes on the canal does also.
- Berkeley, California
March 23, 1911 The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled it burns like a consuming flame.
- First Address
to Congress
December 3, 1901 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.
- Letter to Sir Edward Grey
November 15, 1913 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.
- Letter to Kermit Roosevelt
November 19, 1905 There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of the great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder.
- Sorbonne
April 23, 1910
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.
- Saratoga, New York
September 27, 1910 We believe in all our heartsin democracy; in the capacity of the people to govern themselves; and we are bound to succeed, for our success means not only our own triumph, but the triumph of the cause of the rights of the people throughout the world, and the uplifting of the banner of hope for all the nations of mankind.
- Saratoga, New York
September 27, 1910 From the standpoint of the nation, and from the broader standpoint of mankind, scholarship is of worth chiefly when it is productive, when the scholar not merely receives or acquires, but gives.
- The Outlook
January 13, 1912
Measure iniquity by the heart, whether a man's purse be full or empty, partly full or partly empty. If the man is a descent man, whether well off or not well off, stand by him; if he is not a decent man stand against him, whether he be rich or poor. Quack remedies of the universal cure-all type are generally as noxious to the body politic as to the body corporal.
- Review of Reviews
January 1897 Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground.
- The Groton School
May 24, 1904
Don't hit at all if you can help it; don't hit a man if you can possibly avoid it; but if you do hit him, put him to sleep.
- New York City
February 17, 1899 Let us speak courteously, deal fairly, and keep ourselves armed and ready.
- San Francisco
May 13, 1903 We cannot do great deeds unless we are willing to do the small things that make up the sum of greatness.
- New York
May 30, 1899
Be honest, and remember that honesty counts for nothing unless back of it lie courage and efficiency.
- The Groton School
May 24, 1904 There is no place for the hyphen in our citizenship... We are a nation, not a hodge-podge of foreign nationalities. We are a people, and not a polyglot boarding house.
- "The Square Deal" From the largest to the smallest, happiness and usefulness are largely found in the same souls, and the joy of life is won in its deepest and truest sense only by those who have not shirked life's burdens.
- Syracuse, New York
September 3, 1903
There is not a city on earth that deserves honest government more than New York, and no city in the Union lacks that kind of government more than our city.
- Speech to the
Friends of Honest Government
October 25, 1895 I would rather go out of politics feeling that I had done what was right than stay in with the approval of all men, knowing in my heart that I had acted as I ought not to.
- Speech to the
New York Assembly
1884 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
- Sixth Annual
Message to Congress
December 3, 1906
Avoid the base hypocrisy of condemning in one man what you pass over in silence when committed by another.
- Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 11, 1890 When we undertake the impossible, we often fail to do anything at all.
- Chicago, Illinois
September 3, 1900 We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.
- New York
State Fair
September 3, 1903
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.
Review of Reviews
January 1897 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.
- Review of Reviews
January 1897 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.
- Des Moines, Iowa
November 4, 1910
A square deal for every man; that is the only safe motto for the United States.
Personal Letter
July 17, 1917 Success, the real success, does not depend upon the position you hold but upon how you carry yourself in that position.
- Cambridge Address, England
May 26, 1910 I have never won anything without hard labor and the exercise of my good judgment and careful planning and working long in advance.
- Des Moines, Iowa
November 4, 1910
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, and less than that no man shall have.
Speech in
Springfield, Illinois
July 4, 1903 A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user
- Autobiography To sit home, read one's favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men's doing.
- The Outlook
December 21, 1895
You never have trouble if you are prepared for it. When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer 'present' or 'guilty.' The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.
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. In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans. If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness.
Life brings sorrows and joys alike. It is what a man does with them - not what they do to him - that is the true test of his mettle. Progress has brought us both unbounded opportunities and unbridled difficulties. Thus the measure of our civilization will not be that we have done much, but what we have done with that much. The hardest lessons to learn are those that are the most obvious.
Our country has been populated by pioneers, and therefore it has more energy, more enterprise, more expansive power than any other in the whole world.
- Minnesota State Fair, St. Paul,
Sept 2, 1901 Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far above is character.
- The Outlook,
March 31, 1900 Character is far more important than intellect in making a man a good citizen or successful at his calling- meaning by character not only such qualities as honesty and truthfulness, but courage, perseverance and self-reliance.
- North American Review,
August, 1890
Character is far more important than intellect in making a man a good citizen or successful in his calling meaning by character not only such qualities as honesty and truthfulness, but courage, perseverance, and self-reliance. The amateur, and not the professional, is the desirable citizen, the man who should be encouraged. Our object is to get as many of our people as possible to take part in manly, healthy, vigorous pastimes, which will benefit the whole nation; it is not to produce a limited class of athletes who shall make it the business of their lives to do battle with one another for the popular amusement.

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English- Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian- Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. Addressing the Knights of Columbus in New York City 12 October 1915	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, who 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 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 neither know victory nor defeat.	I believe in nationalism as the absolute prerequisite to internationalism. I believe in patriotism as the absolute prerequisite to the larger Americanism. I believe in Americanism because unless our people are good Americans first, America can accomplish little or nothing worth accomplishing for the good of the world as a whole.
The great bulk of my wealthy and educated friends regard me as a dangerous crank.	I have only a second rate brain, but I think I have a capacity for action.	I keep my good health by having a very bad temper, kept under good control.
A stream cannot rise larger than its source.	Life is not easy, and least of all is it easy for either the man or the nation that aspires to great deeds.	It is always better to be an original than an imitation. - Forum, April 1894
We are face to face with our destiny and we must meet it with a high and resolute courage.	Envy is as evil a thing as arrogance. - Letter written in Oyster Bay, New York September 1, 1903	It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. - Chicago, Illinois April 10, 1899
The worst of all fears is the fear of living. - Autobiography, 1913	It is true of the Nation, as of the individual, that the greatest doer must also be the great dreamer. - Berkeley, 1911	Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor. - Third Annual Message to Congress December 7, 1903
Unless a man is master of his soul, all other kinds of mastery amount to little. - Ladies' Home Journal January 1917	Americans learn only from catastrophe and not from experience. - Autobiography	It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it. - Dakota Territory July 4, 1886
I took the canal zone and let Congress debate, and while the debate goes on the canal does also. - Berkeley, California March 23, 1911	The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled it burns like a consuming flame. - First Address to Congress December 3, 1901	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. - Letter to Sir Edward Grey November 15, 1913	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. - Letter to Kermit Roosevelt November 19, 1905	There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of the great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. - Sorbonne April 23, 1910
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. - Saratoga, New York September 27, 1910	We believe in all our heartsin democracy; in the capacity of the people to govern themselves; and we are bound to succeed, for our success means not only our own triumph, but the triumph of the cause of the rights of the people throughout the world, and the uplifting of the banner of hope for all the nations of mankind. - Saratoga, New York September 27, 1910	From the standpoint of the nation, and from the broader standpoint of mankind, scholarship is of worth chiefly when it is productive, when the scholar not merely receives or acquires, but gives. - The Outlook January 13, 1912
Measure iniquity by the heart, whether a man's purse be full or empty, partly full or partly empty. If the man is a descent man, whether well off or not well off, stand by him; if he is not a decent man stand against him, whether he be rich or poor.	Quack remedies of the universal cure-all type are generally as noxious to the body politic as to the body corporal. - Review of Reviews January 1897	Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground. - The Groton School May 24, 1904
Don't hit at all if you can help it; don't hit a man if you can possibly avoid it; but if you do hit him, put him to sleep. - New York City February 17, 1899	Let us speak courteously, deal fairly, and keep ourselves armed and ready. - San Francisco May 13, 1903	We cannot do great deeds unless we are willing to do the small things that make up the sum of greatness. - New York May 30, 1899
Be honest, and remember that honesty counts for nothing unless back of it lie courage and efficiency. - The Groton School May 24, 1904	There is no place for the hyphen in our citizenship... We are a nation, not a hodge-podge of foreign nationalities. We are a people, and not a polyglot boarding house. - "The Square Deal"	From the largest to the smallest, happiness and usefulness are largely found in the same souls, and the joy of life is won in its deepest and truest sense only by those who have not shirked life's burdens. - Syracuse, New York September 3, 1903
There is not a city on earth that deserves honest government more than New York, and no city in the Union lacks that kind of government more than our city. - Speech to the Friends of Honest Government October 25, 1895	I would rather go out of politics feeling that I had done what was right than stay in with the approval of all men, knowing in my heart that I had acted as I ought not to. - Speech to the New York Assembly 1884	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 - Sixth Annual Message to Congress December 3, 1906
Avoid the base hypocrisy of condemning in one man what you pass over in silence when committed by another. - Cambridge, Massachusetts March 11, 1890	When we undertake the impossible, we often fail to do anything at all. - Chicago, Illinois September 3, 1900	We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less. - New York State Fair September 3, 1903
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. Review of Reviews January 1897	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. - Review of Reviews January 1897	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. - Des Moines, Iowa November 4, 1910
A square deal for every man; that is the only safe motto for the United States. Personal Letter July 17, 1917	Success, the real success, does not depend upon the position you hold but upon how you carry yourself in that position. - Cambridge Address, England May 26, 1910	I have never won anything without hard labor and the exercise of my good judgment and careful planning and working long in advance. - Des Moines, Iowa November 4, 1910
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, and less than that no man shall have. Speech in Springfield, Illinois July 4, 1903	A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user - Autobiography	To sit home, read one's favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men's doing. - The Outlook December 21, 1895
You never have trouble if you are prepared for it.	When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer 'present' or 'guilty.'	The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.
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.	In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans.	If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness.
Life brings sorrows and joys alike. It is what a man does with them - not what they do to him - that is the true test of his mettle.	Progress has brought us both unbounded opportunities and unbridled difficulties. Thus the measure of our civilization will not be that we have done much, but what we have done with that much.	The hardest lessons to learn are those that are the most obvious.
Our country has been populated by pioneers, and therefore it has more energy, more enterprise, more expansive power than any other in the whole world. - Minnesota State Fair, St. Paul, Sept 2, 1901	Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far above is character. - The Outlook, March 31, 1900	Character is far more important than intellect in making a man a good citizen or successful at his calling- meaning by character not only such qualities as honesty and truthfulness, but courage, perseverance and self-reliance. - North American Review, August, 1890
Character is far more important than intellect in making a man a good citizen or successful in his calling meaning by character not only such qualities as honesty and truthfulness, but courage, perseverance, and self-reliance.	The amateur, and not the professional, is the desirable citizen, the man who should be encouraged. Our object is to get as many of our people as possible to take part in manly, healthy, vigorous pastimes, which will benefit the whole nation; it is not to produce a limited class of athletes who shall make it the business of their lives to do battle with one another for the popular amusement.