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Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

26th U.S. President

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Famous Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

“It is no limitation upon property rights or freedom of contract to require that when men receive from government the privilege of doing business under corporate form... they shall do so under absolutely truthful representations... Great corporations exist only because they were created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions.”

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Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“The men of wealth who today are trying to prevent the regulation and control of their business in the interest of the public by the proper government authorities will not succeed, in my judgment, in checking the progress of the movement. But if they did succeed they would find that they had sown the wind and would surely reap the whirlwind, for they would ultimately provoke the violent excesses which accompany a reform coming by convulsion instead of by steady and natural growth.”

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Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“The supreme duty of the Nation is the conservation of human resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in State and Nation for ... the protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use.”

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Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“The establishment of the National Park Service is justified by considerations of good administration, of the value of natural beauty as a National asset, and of the effectiveness of outdoor life and recreation in the production of good citizenship.”

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Book:The Green Roosevelt: Theodore Roosevelt in Appreciation of Wilderness, Wildlife, and Wild Places
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“The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages, though it is apt to be also the most terrible and inhuman. The rude, fierce settler who drives the savage from the land lays all civilized mankind under a debt to him. ...[I]t is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races.”

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Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as helpless; forests which are so used that they cannot renew themselves will soon vanish, and with them all their benefits. A true forest is not merely a storehouse full of wood, but, as it were, a factory of wood and at the same time a reservoir of water. When you help to preserve our forests or plant new ones you are acting the part of good citizens.”

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Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“Our country, we have faith to believe, is only at the beginning of its growth. Unless the forests of the United States can be made ready to meet the vast demands which this growth will inevitably bring, commercial disaster, that means disaster to the whole country, is inevitable.”

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Book:Presidential Addresses and State Papers of Theodore Roosevelt: With Portrait Frontispiece
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“We want the active and zealous help of every man far-sighted enough to realize the importance from the standpoint of the nation's welfare in the future of preserving the forests.”

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Book:Presidential Addresses and State Papers of Theodore Roosevelt ...: With Portrait Frontispiece ...
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“Compromise" is so often used in a bad sense that it is difficult to remember that properly it merely describes the process of reaching an agreement. Naturally there are certain subjects on which no man can compromise. For instance, there must be no compromise under any circumstances with official corruption, and of course no man should hesitate to say as much.”

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Book:The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses
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“Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions.”

DutyHarmonyInstitutionsCorporations
Book:Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement
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“From the greatest to the smallest, happiness and usefulness are largely found in the same soul, and the joy of life is won in its deepest and truest sense only by those who have not shirked life's burdens.”

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Book:Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century
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“Unjust war is to be abhorred; but woe to the nation that does not make ready to hold its own in time of need against all who would harm it! And woe thrice over to the nation in which the average man loses the fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the day of need should arise!”

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Book:History as Literature and Other Essays
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“While the nation that has dared to be great, that has had the will and the power to change the destiny of the ages, in the end must die, yet no less surely the nation that has played the part of the weakling must also die; and whereas the nation that has done nothing leaves nothing behind it, the nation that has done a great work really continues, though in changed form, to live forevermore.”

EndsDoneAgeFormDiesNationsBehindsDestinyChangedGreat WorkLive ForeverPower To Change
Book:Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century
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“Of one man in especial, beyond anyone else, the citizens of a republic should beware, and that is of the man who appeals to them to support him on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the republic, that he will secure for those who elect him, in one shape or another, profit at the expense of other citizens of the republic. It makes no difference whether he appeals to class hatred or class interest, to religious or anti-religious prejudice. The man who makes such an appeal should always be presumed to make it for the sake of furthering his own interest.”

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Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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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.”

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Book:The Works of Theodore Roosevelt
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“Life is as if you were traveling a ridge crest. You have the gulf of inefficiency on one side and the gulf of wickedness on the other, and it helps not to have avoided one gulf if you fall into the other.”

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Book:Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century
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“It is not only highly desirable but necessary that there should be legislation which shall carefully shield the interests of wage-workers, and which shall discriminate in favor of the honest and humane employer by removing the disadvantage under which he stands when compared with unscrupulous competitors who have no conscience and will do right only under fear of punishment.”

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Book:The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses
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“A party should not contain utterly incongruous elements, radically divided on the real issues, and acting together only on false and dead issues insincerely painted as real and vital. It should not in the several States as well as in the Nation be prostituted to the service of the baser type of political boss. It should be so composed that there should be a reasonable agreement in the actions taken by it both in the Nation and in the several States. Judged by these standards, both of the old parties break down.”

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Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“When the time of danger comes, all Americans, whatever their social standing, whatever their creed, whatever the training they have received, no matter from what section of the country they have come, stand together as men, as Americans, and are content to face the same fate and do the same duties because fundamentally they all alike have the common purpose to serve the glorious flag of their common country.”

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Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“In every community there are little knots of fantastic extremists who loudly proclaim that they are striving for righteousness, and who, in reality, do their feeble best for unrighteousness. Just as the upright politician should hold in peculiar scorn the man who makes the name of politician a reproach and a shame, so the genuine reformer should realize that the cause he champions is especially jeopardized by the mock reformer who does what he can to make reform a laughingstock among decent men.”

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Book:The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses
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“There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.”

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Book:The Roosevelt Policy: Speeches, Letters and State Papers, Relating to Corporate Wealth and Closely Allied Topics, of Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States
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“To permit every lawless capitalist, every law-defying corporation, to take any action, no matter how iniquitous, in the effort to secure an improper profit and to build up privilege, would be ruinous to the Republic and would mark the abandonment of the effort to secure in the industrial world the spirit of democratic fair dealing.”

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Book:Presidential addresses and state papers
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“The bosses of the Democratic party and the bosses of the Republican party alike have a closer grip than ever before on the party machines in the States and in the Nation. This crooked control of both the old parties by the beneficiaries of political and business privilege renders it hopeless to expect any far-reaching and fundamental service from either.”

StatesPoliticalNationsPartyRepublicanMachinesFundamentalsDemocraticPrivilegeReachingBossHopelessRepublican PartyDemocratic PartyCrookedBeneficiaries
Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“A typical vice of American politics the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues, and the announcement of radical policies with much sound and fury, and at the same time with a cautious accompaniment of weasel phrases each of which sucks the meat out of the preceding statement.”

RealSoundIssuesPolicyVicesStatementsRadicalMeatPhrasesTypicalAmerican PoliticsFuryCautiousAvoidanceAnnouncementsWeasels
Book:Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
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