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 nor suffer much because
they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
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.
A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good
enough to be given a square deal afterwards.
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college
education.
A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying
anything real on real issues.
A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character
of the user.
Appraisals are where you get together with your team leader and
agree what an outstanding member of the team you are, how much your
contribution has been valued, what massive potential you have and,
in recognition of all this, would you mind having your salary halved.
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government
owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow
small ones.
Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life
of an individual and of nations alike.
Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting;
but never hit soft!
Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years
to learn English or leave the country.
Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work
hard at work worth doing.
For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children,
if things go reasonably well, certainly all other forms of success
and achievement lose their importance by comparison.
Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has
been effort stored up in the past.
Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become
an oyster.
Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions
speak to all mankind.
I am a part of everything that I have read.
I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than
the average man.
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!
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.
I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart
and that is softness of head.
I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate
goes on, the canal does also.
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.
If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most
of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.
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.
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 hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and
resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
Justice consists not in being neutral between right and wrong,
but in finding out the right and upholding it, wherever found, against
the wrong.
Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
Laws are essential emanations from the self-poised character of
God; they radiate from the sun to the circling edge of creation.
Verily, the mighty Lawgiver hath subjected himself unto laws.
Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can
only mar it.
Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left
a name worth remembering.
Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.
No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.
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.
No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.
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.
Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.
Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've
got to start young.
Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.
People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader
leads, and the boss drives.
Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that
we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy
and hatred enter deep into our own natures.
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.
Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going
higher than a basement.
Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
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 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.
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.
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.
The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
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.
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success
is knowing how to get along with people.
The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.
The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does
anything.
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.
The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity
as is the most brutal wrongdoer.
The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude
on any issue that is dead.
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.
The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it
can be avoided; but never hit softly.
There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There
is room here for only 100 percent. Americanism, only for those who
are Americans and nothing else.
There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of
ease whose name is worth remembering.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president...
is morally treasonable to the American public.
To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace
to society.
To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust
the land instead of using it so as to increase it's usefulness,
will result in undermining in the days of our children the very
properity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified
and developed.
We need the iron qualities that go with true manhood. We need the
positive virtues of resolution, of courage, of indomitable will,
of power to do without shrinking the rough work that must always
be done.
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know
whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'
When you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I
can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.
When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.
With self-discipline most anything is possible.
Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt
|
