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| Theodore Roosevelt
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 his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards. A stream cannot rise larger than its source. 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. All the resources we need are in the mind. Americanism is a question of principle, of purpose, of idealism, or character; it is not a matter of birthplace or creed or line of descent. Americans learn only from catastrophe and not from experience. An effort on my part to become a conservative man, in touch with the influential classes. Avoid the base hypocrisy of condemning in one man what you pass over in silence when committed by another. Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage. Cowardice in a race, as in an individual, is the unpardonable sin. 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. Envy is as evil a thing as arrogance. Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country. Every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it. 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. Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorius triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. 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 nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. 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. 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. Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster. I am a part of everything that I have read. I am as strong as a bull moose. You may use me as you will. I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man. I believe that the next half century will determine if we will advance the cause of Christian civilization or revert to the horrors of brutal paganism. I believe that the officers, and, especially, the directors, of corporations should be held personally responsible when any corporation breaks the law. 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 have always been fond of the West african proverb: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." I keep my good health by having a very bad temper, kept under good control. I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head. I want to see you shoot the way you shout. I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life. I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life. If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble, but neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness, there does not lie strength, power. If elected, I shall see to it that every man has a square deal, no less and no more. If I have erred, I err in company with abraham Lincoln. If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness. 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 a moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing. In any moment of decision, The best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing. In life as in a football game, the principle to follow is: Hit the line hard. In name we had the Declaration of Independence in 1776; but we gave the lie by our acts to the words of the Declaration of Independence until 1865; and words count for nothing except in so far as they represent acts. In this country we have no place for hyphenated americans. 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 better to be faithful than famous. It is both foolish and wicked to teach the average man who is not well off that some wrong or injustice has been done him, and that he should hope for redress elsewhere than in his own industry, honesty, and intelligence. It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws. It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize. It is hard to fail, but it is worse never have tried to succeed. It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks, and the greatest of all prizes are those connected with the home. It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it. It is true of the Nation as well as the individual, that the greatest doer must also be the great dreamer. Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground. Let individuals contribute as they desire; but let us prohibit in effective fashion all corporations from making contributions for any political purpose, directly or indirectly. Let us show, not merely in great crises, but in every day affairs of life, qualities of practical intelligence, of hardihood and endurance, and above all, the power of devotion to a lofty ideal. Materially we must strive to secure a broader economic opportunity for all men, so that each shall have a better chance to show the stuff of which he is made. Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering. 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. No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency. No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his body, to risk his well-being, to risk his life in a great cause. No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse. 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. 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. Only those who are fit to live do not fear to die. and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life. Both life and death are parts of the same great adventure. Our country offers the most wonderful example of democratic government on a giant scale that the world has ever seen; and the peoples of the world are watching to see whether we succeed or fail. People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. 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. Success, the real success, does not depend upon the position you hold but upon how you carry yourself in that position. The american people abhor a vacuum. The american people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled it burns like a consuming flame. The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men 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 chief factor in any man's success or failure must be his own character. The eighth commandment reads, "Thou shalt not steal." It does not read, "Thou shalt not steal from the rich man." It does not read, "Thou shalt not steal from the poor man." It reads simply and plainly, "Thou shalt not steal." The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight. The government is us; we are the government, you and I. The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants. 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 nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value. 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 tyrannies from which men, women and children are suffering in real life are the tyrannies of minorities. 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 worst of all fears is the fear of living. There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering. There is a homely old 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. There is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.There is quite enough sorrow and shame amd suffering and baseness in real life, and there is no need for meeting it unnecessarily in fiction. This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in. To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the american public. To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. Unrestrained greed means the ruin of the great woods and the drying up of the sources of the rivers. War with evil; but show no spirit of malignity toward the man who may be responsible for the evil. Put it out of his power to do wrong. We are fighting in the quarrel of civilization against barbarism, of liberty against tyranny. Germany has become a menace to the whole world. She is the most dangerous enemy of liberty now existing. We can no more and no less afford to condone evil in the man of capital than evil in the man of no capital. 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. 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. 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. |
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