Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

528 Sourced Quotes

No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with the gratitude to the Giver of good who has blessed us.

Theodore Roosevelt
We cannot afford to differ on the question of honesty if we expect our republic permanently to endure. Honesty is not so much a credit as an absolute prerequisite to efficient service to the public. Unless a man is honest, we have no right to keep him in public life; it matters not how brilliant his capacity.

Theodore Roosevelt
Our flag is a proud flag, and it stands for liberty and civilization. Where it has once floated, there must be no return to tyranny.

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
No man can do both effective and decent work in public life unless he is a practical politician on the one hand, and a sturdy believer in Sunday-school politics on the other. He must always strive manfully for the best, and yet, like Abraham Lincoln, must often resign himself to accept the best possible.

Theodore Roosevelt
No nation can be really great unless it is great in peace, in industry, integrity, honesty. Skilled intelligence in civic affairs and industrial enterprises alike; the special ability of the artist, the man of letters, the man of science, and the man of business; the rigid determination to wrong no man, and to stand for righteousness-all these are necessary in a great nation.

Theodore Roosevelt
My hat's in the ring. The fight is on and I'm stripped to the buff.

Theodore Roosevelt
The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it. Life is a great adventure, and I want to say to you, accept it in such a spirit.

Theodore Roosevelt
I hold it to be our duty to see that the wage-worker, the small producer, the ordinary consumer, shall get their fair share of business prosperity. But it either is or ought to be evident to everyone that business has to prosper before anybody can get any benefit from it.

Theodore Roosevelt
The one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight... It should be the growing nation with a future which takes the long look ahead.

Theodore Roosevelt
It is no limitation upon property rights or freedom of contract to require that when men receive from government the privilege of doing business under corporate form... they shall do so under absolutely truthful representations... Great corporations exist only because they were created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions.

Theodore Roosevelt
We Americans have many grave problems to solve, many threatening evils to fight, and many deeds to do, if, as we hope and believe, we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage and the virtue to do them. But we must face facts as they are. We must neither surrender ourselves to a foolish optimism, nor succumb to a timid and ignoble pessimism.

Theodore Roosevelt
The great lawyer who employs his talent and his learning in the highly emunerative task of enabling a very wealthy client to override or circumvent the law is doing all that in him lies to encourage the growth in the country of a spirit of dumb anger against all laws and of disbelief in their efficacy.

Theodore Roosevelt
When I hear of the destruction of a species, I feel just as if all the works of some great writer have perished.

Theodore Roosevelt
There is a point, of course, where a man must take the isolated peak and break with all his associates for clear principle; but until that time comes he must work, if he would be of use, with men as they are. As long as the good in them overbalances the evil, let him work with them for the best that can be obtained.

Theodore Roosevelt
The forces that tend for evil are great and terrible, but the forces of truth and love and courage and honesty and generosity and sympathy are also stronger than ever before.

Theodore Roosevelt
Anything that encourages pauperism, anything that relaxes the manly fiber and lowers self-respect, is an unmixed evil.

Theodore Roosevelt
I have now run up against an ugly snag, the Sunday Excise Law. It is altogether too strict, but I have no honorable alternative save to enforce it and I am enforcing it, to the furious rage of the saloon keepers, and of many good people too; for which I am sorry.

Theodore Roosevelt
The first duty of an American citizen, then, is that he shall work in politics.

Theodore Roosevelt
We can just as little afford to follow the doctrinaires of an extreme individualism as the doctrinaires of an extreme socialism.

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
The eighth commandment reads, "Thou shalt not steal." It does not read, "Thou shalt not steal from the rich man." It does not read, "Thou shalt not steal from the poor man." It reads simply and plainly, "Thou shalt not steal."

Theodore Roosevelt
Courage is not having the strength to go on, it is going on when you don't have the strength. Industry and determination can do anything that genius and advantage can do and many things that they cannot.

Theodore Roosevelt
It is a great mistake to think that the extremist is a better man than the moderate. Usually the difference is not that he is morally stronger, but that he is intellectually weaker. He is not more virtuous. He is simply more foolish.

Theodore Roosevelt
Every special interest is entitled to justice full, fair and complete....but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench or to representation in any public office.

Theodore Roosevelt
The decisions of the courts on economic and social questions depend on their economic and social philosophy.

Theodore Roosevelt
It is the people, and not the judges, who are entitled to say what their constitution means, for the constitution is theirs, it belongs to them and not to their servants in office—any other theory is incompatible with the foundation principles of our government.

Theodore Roosevelt
The supreme duty of the Nation is the conservation of human resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in State and Nation for... the protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use.

Theodore Roosevelt
It is by no means necessary that a great nation should always stand at the heroic level. But no nation has the root of greatness in it unless in time of need it can rise to the heroic mood.

Theodore Roosevelt
We have room for but one loyalty, loyalty to the United States.

Theodore Roosevelt