Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans.
The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.
No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care
Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.
The lack of power to take joy in outdoor nature is as real a misfortune as the lack of power to take joy in books
When you’re at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
A man who has never gone to school may steal a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.
I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Not Guilty’.
I would rather go out of politics having the feeling that I had done what was right than stay in with the approval of all men, knowing in my heart that I have acted as I ought not to.
To befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business & corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
When you play, play hard; when you work, don’t play at all.
No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned.
There were all kinds of things I was afraid of at first, ranging from grizzly bears to ‘mean’ horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.
Although not a very old man, I have yet lived a great deal in my life, and I have known sorrow too bitter and joy too keen to allow me to become either cast down or elated for more than a very brief period over any success or defeat.
Books are all very well in their way, and we love them at Sagamore Hill; but children are better than books.
No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.
The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.
Most of the men had simple souls. They could relate facts, but they said very little about what they dimly felt.
We did everything possible to keep up the spirits of the men, but it was exceedingly difficult because there was nothing for them to do.
There has never yet been a person in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.
The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve them inpractical fashion.
Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth.
Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground.
In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.
I have only a second rate brain, but I think I have a capacity for action.
Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords.
Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
The government is us; WE are the government, you and I.”- Theodore Roosevelt
The President and the Congress are all very well in their way. They can say what they think they think, but it rests with the Supreme Court to decide what they have really thought.
That was a good mark in Latin, and I am pleased with your steady improvement in it.
Every book of tactics in the regiment was in use from morning until night, and the officers and non-commissioned officers were always studying the problems presented at the schools.
Politeness [is] a sign of dignity, not subservience.
It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready.
A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.
We must hold to a rigid accountability those public servants who show unfaithfulness to the interests of the nation or inability to rise to the high level of the new demands upon our strength and our resources.
…the majority in a democracy has no more right to tyrannize over a minority than, under a different system, the latter would to oppress the former.
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 difficult lives and led them well.
Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.
You would be much amused with the animals round the ranch.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell ’em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.
The existence of any method, standard, custom or practice is no reason for its continuance when a better is offered.
It is true of the Nation, as of the individual, that the greatest doer must also be a great dreamer.
Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground
It was a pleasure to deal with a man of high ideals, who scorned everything mean and base, and who possessed those robust and hardy qualities of body and mind, for the lack of which no merely negative virtue can ever atone.
There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake.
the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very muchhigher.
As regards the extraordinary prizes, the element of luck is the determining factor.
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official.
…the more I see the better satisfied I am that I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.
We should not forget that it will be just as important to our descendants to be prosperous in their time as it is to us to be prosperous in our time.
There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother.
I can do one of two things. I can be President of the United States or I can control Alice Roosevelt. (His 19-year-old daughter.) I cannot possibly do both.
It is never worth while to absolutely exhaust one’s self or to take big chances unless for an adequate object.
The joy in life is his who has the heart to demand it.
The reader, the booklover, must meet his own needs without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs should be.
Women should have free access to every field of labor which they care to enter, and when their work is as valuable as that of a man it should be paid as highly.
Now and then I am asked as to ‘what books a statesman should read,’ and my answer is, poetry and novels – including short stories under the head of novels.
Do what you can with what you have where you are.
We demand that big business give people a square deal in return we must insist that when anyone engaged in big business honesdy endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal.
Do what you can with what you have where you are.
No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it.
I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
Do what you can with what you have where you are.
My hat’s in the ring. The fight is one and I’m stripped to the buff.
Pray not for lighter burdens but for stronger backs.
It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks.
I care not what others think of what I do but I care very much about what I think of what I do. That is character!
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks.
Do what you can with what you have where you are.
Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.
Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.
One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called “weasel words.” When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a “weasel word” after another there is nothing left of the other.
I am only an average man but by George I work harder at it than the average man.
The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.
The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.
If there is not the war, you don’t get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don’t get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.
Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.
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.
Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.
It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
Absence and death are the same – only that in death there is no suffering.
Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.
The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.
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.
The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
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.
A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.
There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.
People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
Speak softly and carry a big stick you will go far.
Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.
Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.
The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.
Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.
No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.
If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.
The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.
A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.
Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.
The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.
Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.