Quotes from 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.

Pray not for lighter burdens but for stronger backs.

I have only a second rate brain, but I think I have a capacity for action.

A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.

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.

The nation should be ruled by the Ten Commandments.

Politeness [is] a sign of dignity, not subservience.

Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.

He who makes no mistakes makes no progress.

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.

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 most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.

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 modern naturalist must realize that in some of its branches his profession, while more than ever a science, has also become an art.

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

We will send ships and Marines as soon as possible for the protection of American life and property.

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.

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

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'

Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind

I think we are warranted in contending that a society thus constituted, and which may be rendered so admirable an engine of improvement, far from meriting reproach, deserves highly of the community.

Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.

It is of far more important that a man shall play something himself, even if he plays it badly, than that he shall go with hundreds of companions to see someone else play well.