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Quote by Theodore Roosevelt

“Right here let me make as vigorous a plea as I know how in favor of saying nothing that we do not mean, and of acting without hesitation up to whatever we say. A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick -- you will go far.' If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power. In private life there are few beings more obnoxious than the man who is always loudly boasting; and if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words his position becomes absolutely contemptible. So it is with the nation. It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and, above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples.”

Author

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. A progressive leader, he is known for his advocacy of the conservation movement, expansion of federal government regulation, and efforts to improve the lives of American citizens. more

“[Theodore] Roosevelt had long ago discovered that the more provincial the supplicants, the less able were they to understand that their need was not unique: that he was not yearning to travel two thousand miles on bad trains to support the reelection campaign of a county sheriff, or to address the congregation of a new chapel in a landscape with no trees. His refusal, no matter how elaborately apologetic, was received more often in puzzlement than anger. Imaginatively challenged folks, for whom crossing a state line amounted to foreign travel, could not conceive that the gray-blue eyes inspecting them had, over the past year, similarly scrutinized Nandi warriors, Arab mullahs, Magyar landowners, French marshals, Prussian academics, or practically any monarch or minister of consequence in Europe -- not to mention the maquettes in Rodin’s studio, and whatever dark truths flickered in the gaze of dying lions. From COLONEL ROOSEVELT, p. 104.”

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Book:Colonel Roosevelt

Source: Colonel Roosevelt

“Far-seeing patriots should turn scornfully from men who seek power on a platform which with exquisite nicety combines silly inability to understand the national needs and dishonest insintcerity in promising conflicting and impossible remedies.”

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Author:Theodore Roosevelt

“[Theodore] Roosevelt referred to [Emilio] Aguinaldo as a "renegade Pawnee" and observed that Filipinos did not have the right to govern their country just because they happened to occupy it.”

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Book:An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

Source: An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

“Teddy Roosevelt had handpicked Taft as his successor, and when Teddy Roosevelt tells you to do something, you goddamn do it or risk having him punch you in the butt so hard your poop stays inside you forever out of fear of possibly running into Roosevelt.”