Quotations from Theodore Roosevelt, 1858-1919
- Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Speech before the Hamilton Club, Chicago [April 10, 1899]- Death is always and under all circumstances a tragedy, for if it is not, then it means that life itself has become one.
Letter to Cecil Spring-Rice [March 12, 1900]- No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.
The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses [1900]. The Strenuous Life- If we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at the hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world.
The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses [1900]. The Strenuous Life- There is a homely adage which runs, "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." If the American nation will speak softly and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far.
Speech at Minnesota State Fair [September 2, 1901]- The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight.
Speech at New York [November 11, 1902]- 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 to, and less than that no man shall have.
Speech at Springfield, Illinois [July 4, 1903]- No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor.
Third Annual Message [December 7, 1903]- Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.
Address on the laying of the cornerstone of the House Office Building, Washington [April 14, 1906]- To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.
Message to Congress [December 3, 1907]- The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens.
The New Nationalism [1910]- The lunatic fringe in all reform movements.
Autobiography [1913]- 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.
Autobiography [1913]
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