Quotes

You would be amused at the pets they have aboard this ship. They have two young bull dogs, a cat, three little raccoons, and a tiny Cuban goat. They seem to be very amicable with one another, although I think the cat has suspicions of all the rest.

Theodore Roosevelt was able to find humor in all kinds of situations, including the historic trip to Panama during his presidency. He was the first sitting United States President to leave the nation’s borders.

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You would be amused to see me, in my sombrero hat, fringed and beaded buckskin shirt, horse hide chaparajos or riding trousers, and cowhide boots, with braided bridle and silver spurs.

Excerpt from a letter to Henry Cabot Lodge on August 12, 1884.

With most men courage is largely an acquired habit…

Excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt’s book, “The Strenuous Life.”

With the life I have led it is unlikely that I shall retain vigor to a very advanced age, and I want to be a man of action as long as I can.

Roosevelt wrote these words as he transitioned out of the presidency and planned his trip to Africa. He remained a man of action to his last day, January 6, 1919.

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Within 24 hours we should be given means to purchase every good battleship, cruiser and torpedo-boat that there is for sale in any part of the world.

Theodore Roosevelt imagines the strength of the U.S. Navy if men like Civil War General Bradley T. Johnson were in Congress.

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Woe to all of us if ever as a people we grow to condone evil because it is successful.

Excerpt, “The Strenuous Life.”

Women should have access to every field of labor which they care to enter, and when their work is as valuable as that of a man it should be paid as highly.

From Chapter 5 of Roosevelt’s autobiography Applied Idealism

Women should have free access to every field of labor which they care to enter, and when their work is as valuable as that of a man it should be paid as highly.

Typed excerpt from Chapter V of Theodore Roosevelt’s Autobiography, Applied Idealism, in which he discusses gender relations and roles in society.

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Work, the capacity for work, is absolutely necessary; and no man’s life is full, no man can be said to live in the true sense of the word if he does not work.

President Roosevelt speaks to the railroad branch of the YMCA in Topeka, Kansas, on “decent living and high ideals.” He praises them for their character, strength, and courage. Roosevelt also discusses the YMCA’s mission and how it helps to develop the character of young men. He also discusses his hopes for the future.

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Work and love, using each in its broadest sense – work, the quality which makes a man ashamed not to be able to pull his own weight, not to do for himself as well as for others without being beholden to anyone for what he is doing; work, no man is happy if he does not work.

President Roosevelt speaks to the railroad branch of the YMCA in Topeka, Kansas, on “decent living and high ideals.” He praises them for their character, strength, and courage. Roosevelt also discusses the YMCA’s mission and how it helps to develop the character of young men. He also discusses his hopes for the future.

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Write no matter how tired you are, no matter how inconvenient it is; write if you’re smashed up in a hospital; write when you are doing your most dangerous stints; write when your work is most irksome and disheartening; write all the time! Write enough letters to allow for half being lost.

Theodore Roosevelt encourages Quentin Roosevelt to write more often to his family and fiance, Flora Whitney. He cautions that as an “infrequent correspondent,” Quentin could lose Flora. Quentin should write interesting and love letters at least three times per week under all circumstances. There should be enough letters to allow for half of them to be lost.

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Yes, my friend, and if you will steal for me then you will steal from me.

Theodore Roosevelt delivered the speech entitled “Citizenship in a Republic” at the Sorbonne in Paris on April 23, 1910. The speech is popularly known as “The Man in the Arena.” His statements at the Sorbonne were part of a larger trip to Europe that also included visits to Vienna, Budapest, and Oslo.

Yesterday morning at a quarter of seven all the children were up and dressed and began to hammer at the door of their mother’s and my room, in which their six stockings, all bulging out with queer angles and rotundities, were hanging from the fireplace.

President Roosevelt describes an eventful Christmas in the White House.

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Yesterday we struck the Spaniards and had a brisk fight for 2 ½ hours before we drove them out of their position. We lost a dozen men killed or mortally wounded and sixty severely or slightly wounded. Brodie was wounded; poor Capron and Ham. Fish were killed. Will you send this note to Fish’s father? One man was killed as he stood beside a tree with me. Another bullet went through a tree behind which I stood and filled my eyes with bark. The last charge I led on the left using a rifle I took from a wounded man; and I kept three of the empty cartridges we got from a dead Spaniard at this point, for the children. Every man behaved well; there was no flinching. The fire was very hot at one or two points where the men around me went down like ninepins.

Roosevelt wrote this passage in a running letter to his sister Corinne from Cuba. This section was dated June 25, 1898. The day before Roosevelt saw his first war action. This was not what TR later called “my crowded hour.” That adventure, on July 1, 1898, involved the famous charge up Kettle and then San Juan hills.

Yet although we saw no game it was very pleasant to sit out, on the still evenings, among the tall pines or on the edge of a great gorge, until the afterglow of the sunset was dispelled by the beams of the frosty moon. Now and again the hush would be suddenly broken by the long howling of a wolf, that echoed and rang in the hollow woods and through the deep chasms until they resounded again, while it made our hearts bound and the blood leap in our veins.

Roosevelt describes the long nights in the Badlands in his book, Ranch Life, on page 182.

Yet another year of widespread well-being has past. Never before in our history or in the history of any other nation has a people enjoyed more abounding prosperity than is ours; a prosperity so great that it should arouse in us no spirit of reckless pride…but rather a sober sense of our many blessings…

These words were written in a presidential proclamation for a day of thanksgiving and praise, issued in November of 1906.

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You, the sons of the pioneers, if you are true to your ancestry, must make your lives as worthy as they made theirs.

Excerpt, “National Duty” from “The Strenuous Life.”

You are bound in honor to make my judgment good.

TR wrote these words to Benjamin Franklin Daniels on February 1, 1902 when he confirmed Daniels’ appointment as U.S. Marshal for Arizona Territory despite strong opposition. Within weeks, TR was forced to ask Daniels for his resignation because of a long-past felony conviction Daniels had neglected to disclose.

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You are certainly the most loyal friend that ever breathed.

Roosevelt wrote these words to his friend Henry Cabot Lodge on March 25, 1889. Lodge’s loyalty would continue throughout the lives.

You are fighting for the rights of every well-behaved people to live its own life and decide for itself what form of government it desires. Above all you are fighting for American, for your own country.

Theodore Roosevelt thanks members of the Armed Forces for their service during World War I and praises men willing to fight for their country. He condemns the actions of Germany and says that the war is being fought for the greater good of America and for humanity.

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