Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

528 Sourced Quotes

I put myself in the way of things happening, and they happened.

Theodore Roosevelt
With a great moral issue involved, neutrality does not serve righteousness; for to be neutral between right and wrong is to serve wrong.

Theodore Roosevelt
There are plenty of decent legislators, and plenty of able legislators; but the blamelessness and the fighting edge are not always combined. Both qualities are necessary for the man who is to wage active battle against the powers that prey. He must be clean of life, so that he can laugh when his public or his private record is searched; and yet being clean of life will not avail him if he is either foolish or timid. He must walk warily and fearlessly, and while he should never brawl if he can avoid it, he must be ready to hit hard if the need arises. Let him remember, by the way, that the unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.

Theodore Roosevelt
The truth is that any good modern rifle is good enough. The determining factor is the man behind the gun.

Theodore Roosevelt
A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world. In the last analysis a healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they shall endeavor, not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease, but to know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk.

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

Theodore Roosevelt
Death is always and under all circumstances a tragedy, for if it is not, then it means that life itself has become one.

Theodore Roosevelt
For example, throughout the long contest, extending over several decades, on the free [silver] coinage question, the existence of this motto on the coins was a constant source of jest and ridicule; and this was unavoidable. Everyone must remember the innumerable cartoons and articles based on phrases like 'In God we trust for the other eight cents'; 'In God we trust for the short weight'; 'In god we trust for the thirty-seven cents we do not pay'; and so forth and so forth. Surely I am well within bounds when I say that a use of the phrase which invites constant levity of this type is most undesirable.

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
I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.

Theodore Roosevelt
I want to see you game, boys, I want to see you brave and manly, and I also want to see you gentle and tender.

Theodore Roosevelt
To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church, or because, like Abraham Lincoln, he has not avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage against the liberty of conscience, which is one of the foundations of American life.

Theodore Roosevelt
There is superstition in science quite as much as there is superstition in theology, and it is all the more dangerous because those suffering from it are profoundly convinced that they are freeing themselves from all superstition.

Theodore Roosevelt
If the American people are not fit for popular government, and if they should of right be the servants and not the masters of those whom they themselves put in office, then Lincoln's work was wasted and the whole system of government upon which this great democratic republic rests is a failure.

Theodore Roosevelt
The Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war, and the failure to act against Turkey is to condone it... the failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense.

Theodore Roosevelt
Any political movement directed against any body of our fellow-citizens because of their religious creed is a grave offense against American principles and American institutions. It is a wicked thing either to support or oppose a man because of the creed he possesses.... Such a movement directly contravenes the spirit of the Constitution itself.

Theodore Roosevelt
It is of little use for us to pay lip-loyalty to the mighty men of the past unless we sincerely endeavor to apply to the problems of the present precisely the qualities which in other crises enabled the men of that day to meet those crises.

Theodore Roosevelt
Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the nation.

Theodore Roosevelt
Get action. Do things; be sane; don't fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are and be somebody; get action.

Theodore Roosevelt
My power vanishes into thin air the instant that my fellow citizens, who are straight and honest, cease to believe that I represent them and fight for what is straight and honest. That is all the strength that I have.

Theodore Roosevelt
I cannot consent to take the position that the door of hope — the door of opportunity — is to be shut upon any man, no matter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or color. Such an attitude would, according to my convictions, be fundamentally wrong.

Theodore Roosevelt
I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than vice president.

Theodore Roosevelt
No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumphs of war.

Theodore Roosevelt
Let us make it evident that we intend to do justice. Then let us make it equally evident that we will not tolerate injustice being done to us in return. Let us further make it evident that we use no words which we are not prepared to back up with deeds, and that while our speech is always moderate, we are ready and willing to make it good. Such an attitude will be the surest possible guarantee of that self-respecting peace, the attainment of which is and must ever be the prime aim of a self-governing people.

Theodore Roosevelt
For those who fight for it life has a flavor the sheltered will never know

Theodore Roosevelt