Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

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The outcome was equally fatal, whether the country fell into the hands of a wealthy oligarchy which exploited the poor or whether it fell under the domination of a turbulent mob which plundered the rich. In both cases there resulted violent alternations between tyranny and disorder, and a final complete loss of liberty to all citizens — destruction in the end overtaking the class which had for the moment been victorious as well as that which had momentarily been defeated. The death-knell of the Republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.

Theodore Roosevelt
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 much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt
I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.

Theodore Roosevelt
The American people should itself do these things for the immigrants. If we leave the immigrant to be helped by representatives of foreign governments, by foreign societies, by a press and institutions conducted in a foreign language and in the interest of foreign governments, and if we permit the immigrants to exist as alien groups, each group sundered from the rest of the citizens of the country, we shall store up for ourselves bitter trouble in the future.

Theodore Roosevelt
There is apt to be a lunatic fringe among the votaries of any forward movement.

Theodore Roosevelt
In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world.

Theodore Roosevelt
To any nation that stands for human liberties, they have an Ally in the United States.

Theodore Roosevelt
As a people we claim the right to speak with peculiar emphasis for freedom and for fair treatment of all men without regard to differences of race, fortune, creed or color. We forfeit the right so to speak when we commit or condone such crimes as these of which I speak.

Theodore Roosevelt
I am far from underestimating the importance of dividends, but I rank dividends below human character.

Theodore Roosevelt
The wolf is the arch type of ravin, the beast of waste and desolation.

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

Theodore Roosevelt
A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the 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
The great virtue of my radicalism lies in the fact that I am perfectly ready, if necessary, to be radical on the conservative side.

Theodore Roosevelt
More and more, as it becomes necessary to preserve the game, let us hope that the camera will largely supplant the rifle.

Theodore Roosevelt
The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so long as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens.

Theodore Roosevelt
Surely, no patriot can fail to see the fearful brutalization and debasement which the indulgence of such a spirit and such practices inevitably portend. Surely, all public men, all writers for the daily press, all clergymen, all teachers, all who in any way have a right to address the public, should, with every energy, unite to denounce such crimes and to support those engaged in putting them down.

Theodore Roosevelt
Many qualities are needed by a people which would preserve the power of self- government in fact as well as in name. Among these qualities are forethought, shrewdness, self-restraint, the courage which refuses to abandon one's own rights, and the disinterested and kindly good sense which enables one to do justice to the rights of others. Lack of strength and lack of courage and unfit men for self-government on the one hand; and on the other, brutal arrogance, envy — in short, any manifestation of the spirit of selfish disregard, whether of one's own duties or of the rights of others, are equally fatal.

Theodore Roosevelt
The greatest historian should also be a great moralist. It is no proof of impartiality to treat wickedness and goodness on the same level.

Theodore Roosevelt
No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

Theodore Roosevelt
Our country, we have faith to believe, is only at the beginning of its growth. Unless the forests of the United States can be made ready to meet the vast demands which this growth will inevitably bring, commercial disaster, that means disaster to the whole country, is inevitable.

Theodore Roosevelt
From the very beginning our people have markedly combined practical capacity for affairs with power of devotion to an ideal. The lack of either quality would have rendered the other of small value.

Theodore Roosevelt
You could no more make an agreement with them than you could nail currant jelly to a wall - and the failure to nail current jelly to a wall is not due to the nail; it is due to the currant jelly.

Theodore Roosevelt
We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when any one engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal; and the first, and most elementary, kind of square deal is to give him in advance full information as to just what he can, and what he cannot, legally and properly do. It is absurd, and much worse than absurd, to treat the deliberate lawbreaker as on an exact par with the man eager to obey the law, whose only desire is to find out from some competent Governmental authority what the law is, and then to live up to it. Moreover, it is absurd to treat the size of a corporation as in itself a crime.

Theodore Roosevelt
There are good men and bad men of all nationalities, creeds and colors; and if this world of ours is ever to become what we hope some day it may become, it must be by the general recognition that the man's heart and soul, the man's worth and actions, determine his standing.

Theodore Roosevelt
The men of Yale, the men of the universities, all, who, when the country called, went to give their lives, did more than reflect honor upon the universities from which they came. They did that which they could not have done so well in any other way. They showed that when the time of danger comes, all Americans, whatever their social standing, whatever their creed, whatever the training they have received, no matter from what section of the country they have come, stand together as men, as Americans, and are content to face the same fate and do the same duties because fundamentally they all alike have the common purpose to serve the glorious flag of their common country.

Theodore Roosevelt