Theodore Roosevelt Quotes - Page 3

• Our loyalty is due entirely to the United States. It is due to the President only and exactly to the degree in which he efficiently serves the United States. It is our duty to support him when he serves the United States well. It is our duty to oppose him when he serves it badly. This is true about Mr. Wilson now and it has been true about all our Presidents in the past. It is our duty at all times to tell the truth about the President and about every one else, save in the cases where to tell the truth at the moment would benefit the public enemy.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Loyalty, Past, Support

  Theodore Roosevelt (1941). “Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia”

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• The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Wisdom, Children, Names

  Theodore Roosevelt, Paul H. Jeffers (1998). “The Bully Pulpit: A Teddy Roosevelt Book of Quotations”, p.24, Taylor Trade Publications

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• Profanity is the parlance of the fool. Why curse when there is such a magnificent language with which to discourse?

  Theodore Roosevelt

  War, Fool, Language

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• There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done ... Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Political, Done, Corporations

  Theodore Roosevelt (1941). “Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia”

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• A soft, easy life is not worth living, if it impairs the fibre of brain and heart and muscle. We must dare to be great; and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage... For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Running, Heart, Sacrifice

  Theodore Roosevelt (1926). “The Works of Theodore Roosevelt”

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• The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything. Do not be afraid to make mistakes providing you do not make the same one twice.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Mistake, Men, Doe

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• The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Inspirational, Relationship, Success

  Theodore Roosevelt (2015). “Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century”, p.13, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Unrestrained greed means the ruin of the great woods and the drying up of the sources of the rivers.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Mean, Rivers, Greed

  Theodore Roosevelt (1899). “The Rough Riders: An Autobiography”, p.568, Library of America

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• Life brings sorrows and joys alike. It is what a man does with them - not what they do to him - that is the true test of his mettle.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  War, Men, Joy

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• It may be that 'the voice of the people is the voice of God' in fifty one cases out of a hundred, but in the remaining forty nine it is quite as likely to be the voice of the devil, of, what is still worse, the voice of a fool.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Voice, People, Devil

  Theodore Roosevelt (1951). “Letters, Selected and Edited by Elting E. Morison”

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• In the long run, the most unpleasant truth is a safer companion than a pleasant falsehood.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Running, Long, Truth Is

  Theodore Roosevelt (2016). “Theodore Roosevelt's Words of Wit and Wisdom”, p.16, Chartwell

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• The truth is that any good modern rifle is good enough. The determining factor is the man behind the gun.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Gun, Men, Rifles

  Theodore Roosevelt (1910). “The Works of Theodore Roosevelt: African game trails”

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• I believe in corporations. They are indispensable instruments of our modern civilization. But I believe they should be so regulated that they shall act for the interests of the community as a whole.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Believe, Civilization, Community

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• The worst lesson that can be taught to a man is to rely upon others and to whine over his sufferings

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Men, Rely Upon, Suffering

  Theodore Roosevelt, Paul H. Jeffers (1998). “The Bully Pulpit: A Teddy Roosevelt Book of Quotations”, p.115, Taylor Trade Publications

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• We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when any one engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Business, Squares, People

  Theodore Roosevelt (2012). “In the Words of Theodore Roosevelt: Quotations from the Man in the Arena”, p.59, Cornell University Press

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• Any political movement directed against any body of our fellow-citizens because of their religious creed is a grave offense against American principles and American institutions. It is a wicked thing either to support or oppose a man because of the creed he possesses. . . . Such a movement directly contravenes the spirit of the Constitution itself.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Religious, Men, Political

  Theodore Roosevelt (2005). “Fear God and Take Your Own Part”, p.358, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The very reason why we object to state ownership, that it puts a stop to individual initiative and to the healthy development of personal responsibility, is the reason why we object to an unsupervised, unchecked monopolistic control in private hands. We urge control and supervision by the nation as an antidote to the movement for state socialism. Those who advocate total lack of regulation, those who advocate lawlessness in the business world, themselves give the strongest impulse to what I believe would be the deadening movement toward unadulterated state socialism.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Wisdom, Believe, Responsibility

  Theodore Roosevelt (2006). “History as Literature and Other Essays”, p.187, Cosimo, Inc.

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• There is nothing more distressing ... than the hard, scoffing spirit which treats the allegation of dishonesty in a public man as a cause for laughter. Such laughter is worse than the crackling of thorns under a pot, for it denotes not merely the vacant mind, but the heart in which high emotions have been choked before they could grow to fruition.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Laughter, Heart, Men

  The Man with the Muck-rake, delivered 14 April 1906

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• Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Wisdom, Courage, Gentleman

  Theodore Roosevelt (2015). “Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century”, p.31, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Malefactors of great wealth have arrogantly ignored the public welfare.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Ignored, Wealth, Welfare

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• Every man, who parrots the cry of ‘stand by the President’ without adding the proviso ‘so far as he serves the Republic’ takes an attitude as essentially unmanly as that of any Stuart royalist who championed the doctrine that the King could do no wrong. No self-respecting and intelligent free man could take such an attitude.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Kings, Attitude, Intelligent

  Theodore Roosevelt (1918). “The Great Adventure: Present-day Studies in American Nationalism”, London : J. Murray

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• The party belongs to the millions of the rank and file. It does not belong to the handful of politicians who have assumed fraudulently to upset the will of the rank and file. The action of these men is in no sense "regular," as they claim it to be.... theft and dishonesty cannot give and never shall give a title to regularity.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Party, Men, Giving

  Theodore Roosevelt (1926). “The Works of Theodore Roosevelt”

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• 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.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Dream, Regret, Age

  Theodore Roosevelt (2015). “Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century”, p.13, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• The good citizen will demand liberty for himself, and as a matter of pride he will see to it that others receive the liberty which he thus claims as his own. Probably the best test of true love of liberty in any country is the way in which minorities are treated in that country. Not only should there be complete liberty in matters of religion and opinion, but complete liberty for each man to lead his life as he desires, provided only that in so doing he does not wrong his neighbor.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Wisdom, Country, Pride

  Citizenship in a Republic - The Man in the Arena, delivered 23 April 1910, Le Sorbonne, University of Paris

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• There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil practice, whether in politics, in business, or in social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Book, Men, Practice

  The Man with the Muck-rake, delivered 14 April 1906

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