A man who means well, but who only means well feebly, rarely stands the strain of serious temptation.
In response to one of President Taft’s speeches, Theodore Roosevelt comments on Taft’s campaign during the Presidential Election of 1912.
Your TR Source
Quotes
The following is a list of quotations attributed to Theodore Roosevelt. Where a source can be verified, it is noted below along with a brief explanation of the setting or the context for that quote. This list includes a number of quotations for which a source has not been verified in Theodore Roosevelt's writings. The context for many of the quotes included here reflects research that has been conducted throughout the years by curators of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard University, which is presented here through a cooperation between Harvard College Library and the Theodore Roosevelt Center. Quotations will be added to this list as staff at both institutions continue their research.
A man who stays long in our American political life, if he has in his soul the generous desire to do effective service for great causes, inevitably grows to regard himself merely as one of many instruments, all of which it may be necessary to use, one at one time, one at another, in achieving the triumph of those causes; and whenever the usefulness of any one has been exhausted, it is to be thrown aside. If such a man is wise, he will gladly do the thing that is next, when the time and the need come together, without asking what the future holds for him. Let the half-god play his part well and manfully, and then be content to draw aside when the god appears.
Roosevelt wrote these words in his Autobiography in 1913. Although he was as ambitious as any man in American history, Roosevelt had a keen sense of timing, understood that one must be willing to leave the public stage before the public grew tired of him, and worried always lest he stay too long in the arena.
A man, to be a good citizen, must first be a good breadwinner, a good husband, a good father…
Theodore Roosevelt expressed this sentiment in many places, this time in a speech to the farmers of Maine.
A man’s first duty is to his own home, but he is not thereby excused from doing his duty to the State; for if he fails in this second duty it is under the penalty of ceasing to be a freeman.
Theodore Roosevelt speaks on civic responsibility in The Strenuous Life, a speech delivered before the Hamilton Club, in 1899.
A man’s usefulness depends upon his living up to his ideals in so far as he can. Now, I have consistently preached what our opponents are pleased to call “jingo doctrines” for a good many years. One of the commonest taunts directed at men like myself is that we are armchair and parlor jingoes who wish to see others do what we only advocate doing. I care very little for such a taunt, except as it affects my usefulness, but I cannot afford to disregard the fact that my power for good, whatever it may be, would be gone if I didn’t try to live up to the doctrines I have tried to preach. Moreover, it seems to me that it would be a good deal more important from the standpoint of the nation as a whole that men like myself should go to war than that we should stay comfortably in offices at home and let others carry on the war that we have urged.
Roosevelt wrote these words to his friend William Sturgis Bigelow on March 29, 1898. He was justifying his rather rash decision to resign as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy to lead a group of volunteer cavalrymen to war in Cuba. One of Roosevelt’s most important leadership principles was never to ask another to do what he would not do himself.
A merry Christmas to you!
Seasons greetings letter sent from Theodore Roosevelt to Edward Hale.
A Merry Xmas to all the men of the American Army and Navy, at home and abroad, on sea and shore–to officers and enlisted men, regulars, national guards, national army, sailors, marines, all alike. They are the Americans of whom this Xmas all other Americans have most cause to feel proud.
Theodore Roosevelt always supported the military, particularly during the first world war. He had cause to be particularly proud of the troops of that war as all four of his sons were included.
A nation like an individual usually acts from complex motives.
Theodore Roosevelt believes a nation must be strong to preserve friendships and respect. He would like the United States and Great Britain to have a “peculiarly close degree of friendship.” Roosevelt is currently out of sympathy with the American public and commands little support.
A nation should never fight unless forced to; but it should always be ready to fight. The mere fact that it is ready will generally spare it the necessity of fighting.
Theodore Roosevelt’s belief in a strong military presence was emphasized in his address to the Naval War College in 1897.
A nation’s greatness lies in its possibility of achievement in the present, and nothing helps it more than the consciousness of achievement in the past.
Theodore Roosevelt took pride in his nation and felt that the history of the United States helped shape the possibilities for its future as is evidenced in this statement from his book, American Ideals.
A party fit to govern must have convictions.
Theodore Roosevelt expressed this sentiment about political parties in the speech he gave when accepting the Republican nomination for president in 1904.
A poet can do much more for his country than the proprietor of a nail factory.
While most music left him unmoved, poetry could uniquely touch Theodore Roosevelt. He provided financial support to more than one struggling poet in part because he believed in the power of poetic imagery to keep a nation’s sights fixed on lofty ideals.
A President has a great chance; his position is almost that of a king and a prime minister rolled into one; once he has left office he cannot do very much; and he is a fool if he fails to realize it all and to be profoundly thankful for having had the great chance.
Roosevelt to Lady Delamere, March 7, 1911, two years after he left the presidency. By his own definition, in his post-presidential years he sometimes played the fool.
A prize-fight is simply brutal and degrading. The people who attend it, and make a hero of the prize-fighter, are–excepting boys who go for fun and don’t know any better–to a very great extent, men who hover on the borderline of criminality; and those who are not are speedily brutalized, and are never rendered more manly. They form as ignoble a body as do the kindred frequenters of rat-pit and cock-pit.
Roosevelt was himself a boxer, a pugilist, but he had nothing but disdain for the prize fighting of his day. He wrote these words in the North American Review in August 1890. He believed in amateur rather than professional sports.
A ranchman’s work is, of course, free from much of the sameness attendant upon that of a mere cowboy. One day he will ride out with his men among the cattle, or after strayed horses; the next he may hunt, so as to keep the ranch in meat; then he can make the tour of his outlying camps; or, again, may join one of the round-ups for a week or two, perhaps keeping with it the entire time it is working. On occasions he will have a good deal of spare time on his hands, which, if he chooses, he can spend in reading or writing. If he cares for books, there will be many a worn volume in the primitive little sitting-room, with its log walls and huge fireplace; but after a hard day’s work a man will not read much, but will rock to and fro in the flickering firelight, talking sleepily over his success in the day’s chase and the difficulty he has had with the cattle; or else may simply lie stretched at full length on elkhides and wolfskins in front of the hearthstone, listening in drowsy silence to the roar and crackle of the blazing logs and to the moaning of the wind outside.
Roosevelt wrote these in his 1885 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman. Although he was eager to establish himself as an “authentic cowboy,” Roosevelt understood the important distinction between cow hands and ranchers. As usual, he found a way to write his love of books into this idyllic portrait of life on the Dakota frontier.
A republic can prosper, although the average man is not intellectually brilliant. But it cannot prosper if the average man becomes infirm of mind and soul, if he fears hard work and cares only for the easy avoidance of whatever is rough or unpleasant; or if, although of masterful temperament, he seeks to rise in ways that represent unscrupulous wrong to his weaker and less fortunate fellows.
Theodore Roosevelt writes on the keys to success which for him include Courage, Honesty and Common Sense. He then goes on to discuss the paths a man can take to success.
A self respecting man must insist on his rights; otherwise he neither deserves nor receives the respect of others.
Strong men and women of character were admired by Theodore Roosevelt, and he believed that these people should not only be respected by others, but also should respect themselves.
A sentiment that is easy and natural is far better than one which has to be artificially stimulated.
Excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt’s book, “The Strenuous Life.”
A soldier’s whole life is one continuous, and unceasing battle, and there is no reason why why his responsibilities should vary with the state of the times.
Excerpt, letter to Secretary of the Navy Charles J. Bonaparte, February 17, 1906.
A strong and wise people will study its own failures no less than its triumphs, for there is wisdom to be learned from the study of both, of the mistake as well as of the success.
Theodore Roosevelt included these words in his Sixth Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1906. This was one of Roosevelt’s principles that most people find difficult to adopt.