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Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

26th U.S. President

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Famous Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

“We are coming to recognize as never before the right of the nation to guard its own future in the essential matter of natural resources. In the past we have admitted the right of the individual to injure the future of the Republic for his own present profit. In fact, there has been a good deal of a demand for unrestricted individualism, for the right of the individual to injure the future of all of us for his own temporary and immediate profit. The time has come for a change. As a people, we have the right and the duty, second to none other but the right and duty of obeying the moral law, of requiring and doing justice, to protect ourselves and our children against the wasteful development of our natural resources, whether that waste is caused by the actual destruction of such resources or by making them impossible of development hereafter.”

IndividualismNatural Resources
Book:Roosevelt's Writings: Selections from the Writings of Theodore Roosevelt
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“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

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Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“We cannot afford to differ on the question of honesty if we expect our republic permanently to endure. Honesty is not so much a credit as an absolute prerequisite to efficient service to the public. Unless a man is honest, we have no right to keep him in public life; it matters not how brilliant his capacity.”

IfsMenMatterGovernmentTruthHonestHonestyCapacityAbsolutesEndureCreditBrilliantVotingRepublicEfficientPublic LifePrerequisites
Book:The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses
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“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.”

IfsFirstsKindMeanFearPresidentActingBearsGunHorseAll KindsFighterNot AfraidBetter LifeGrizzliesGrizzly BearsActing As If
Book:Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century
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“Each child represents either a potential addition to the protective capacity and enlightened citizenship of the nation or, if allowed to suffer from neglect, a potential addition to the destructive forces of a community. . . . The interests of the nation are involved in the welfare of this array of children no less than in our great material affairs.”

IfsChildrenSufferingForceNationsInterestCommunityMaterialsInvolvedCapacityAffairWelfareDestructiveEnlightenedNeglectCitizenshipProtective
Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“No nation can be really great unless it is great in peace, in industry, integrity, honesty. Skilled intelligence in civic affairs and industrial enterprises alike; the special ability of the artist, the man of letters, the man of science, and the man of business; the rigid determination to wrong no man, and to stand for righteousness-all these are necessary in a great nation.”

MenScienceArtistNationsAbilitySpecialHonestyHe ManIndustryIntegrityDeterminationLettersIntelligentAffairEnterpriseRighteousnessReally GreatCivicsGreat NationsHonesty Integrity
Book:The Works of Theodore Roosevelt: American ideals. Administration-Civil service
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“I was a reasonably good student in college ... My chief interests were scientific. When I entered college, I was devoted to out-of-doors natural history, and my ambition was to be a scientific man of the Audubon, or Wilson, or Baird, or Coues type-a man like Hart Merriam, or Frank Chapman, or Hornaday, to-day.”

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Book:Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt
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“In a civilized and cultivated country wild animals only continue to exist at all when preserved by sportsmen. the excellent people who protest against all hunting, and consider sportsmen as enemies of wild life, are ignorant of the fact that in reality the genuine sportsman is by all odds the most important factor in keeping the larger and more valuable wild creatures from total extermination.”

PeopleImportantCountryFactsRealityAnimalEnemyCreaturesValuableGenuineIgnorantFactorsExcellentProtestCivilizedHuntingOddsHuntersWild AnimalSportsmanExterminationHunting And FishingWild CreaturesWild Life
Book:The Deer Family
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“The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day.”

ShouldSaidRealSoulPoliticalSpeakLinesPartyLibertyIssuesElementsPrivilegeLibertarianBossControlledDividedArtificialDaringLibertarianismSpeaks Out
Book:Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century
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“There are two kinds of success. One is the rare kind that comes to the person who has the power to do what no one else has the power to do. That is genius. But the average person who wins what we call success is not a genius. That person is a man or woman who has merely the ordinary qualities that they share with their fellows, but has developed those ordinary qualities to a more than ordinary degree.”

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Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“We are consuming our forests three times faster than they are being reproduced. Some of the richest timber lands of this continent have already been destroyed, and not replaced, and other vast areas are on the verge of destruction. Yet forests, unlike mines, can be so handled as to yield the best results of use, without exhaustion, just like grain fields.”

UseScienceThreeResultsLandFieldsMinesAreasDestructionForestsDestroyedFasterYieldGrainContinentsReplacedThree TimesConsumingExhaustionVergeTimberDeforestation
Book:Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
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“Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.”

MeanDoeUseNatureNaturalGenerationsLandDutyDevelopmentWasteResourcesProtectionConservationDinosaursNatural ResourcesThis GenerationNature ConservationLand ConservationSmart GrowthProtect Nature
Book:The Bully Pulpit: A Teddy Roosevelt Book of Quotations
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