Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt

• Appraisals are where you get together with your team leader and agree what an outstanding member of the team you are, how much your contribution has been valued, what massive potential you have and, in recognition of all this, would you mind having your salary halved.
• The American people abhor a vacuum.
• Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
• Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.
• Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.
• Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
• Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.
• Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
• Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
• The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
• Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
• Absence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering.
• A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
• A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.
• A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.
• A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.
• A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
• Believe you can and you're halfway there.
• We can have no '50-50' allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.
• Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
• For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.
• Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
• Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.
• With self-discipline most anything is possible.
• When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.
• The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.
• When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer "Present" or "Not guilty."
• Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.
• The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.
• The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.
• The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.
• There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.
• To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public.
• To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
• When you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.
• The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.
• Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.
• The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.
• The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
• The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.
• The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.
• The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
• The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.
• The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.
• The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
• The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.
• The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.
• Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.
• Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.
• Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.
• Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.
• No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.
• No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it.
• No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.
• Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
• Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.
• No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.
• Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.
• People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
• Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.
• Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.
• Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.
• Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.
• Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
• I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.
• Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.
• Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.
• No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.
• I am a part of everything that I have read.
• It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
• I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!
• I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.
• I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.
• I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also.
• It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.
• If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.
• It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
• If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.
• In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
• It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.
• It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.
• I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
• In every moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.
• Do what you can with what you have, where you are.
• In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.
• In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The next best thing is the wrong thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.
• Believe you can and you're halfway there
• Always strive to be the (wo)man in the arena, daring greatly even in the face of failure.
• Do what you can with all you have, wherever you are.
• Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.
• Do not compare yourself to others, for it is the thief of joy.
• Believe you can, and you're halfway there.
• 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.
• Believe you can and you’re halfway there
• 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.
• Believe you can and you're half way there.
• Believe you can and you are halfway there.
• Believe you can and you’re halfway there!
• When you play, play hard. When you work, don't play at all
• Believe you can and you are halfway there
• Eyes on the stars, feet on the ground.
• Do what you can, with what you have, where you are
• Aim for the stars, but keep your feet on the ground.
• Believe you can achieve and you're halfway there.
• When you play, play hard. When you work, don't play at all.
• The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything
• Do what you can with all You can.
• Believe you can and you're halfway there!
• Do what you can with all you have, wherever you are
• Do what you can, wherever you are, with whatever you have.
• Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.
• The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.
• Always hold your head up, but be careful to keep your feet on the ground.
• Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.
• Believe you can and you're halfway there, the other half is looking for snacks!
• Believe you can, and you're halfway there... and if that doesn't work, it's time for creative ‘plan B’!
• Believe you can and you're halfway there—unless your halfway mark is a sandwich shop, in which case, you cut that sub accounting for travel distances!
• Courage isn't having the strength to go on; it's going on when you don't have the strength.
• Believe you can and you're halfway there, but remember, no one likes a walking hallucination.
• Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground—preferably where the Wi-Fi is strong!
• Believe you can and you're halfway there; procrastination handles the rest!
• Believe you can and you're halfway there— the other half is finding some nice snacks for the journey ahead!
• Believe you can and you're halfway there; the other half is determining how to not trip over your own shoelaces.
• Believe you can and you're halfway there, but remember, it's the stubbornness to keep going that gets you the rest of the way!
• Believe you can, and you're halfway there—even when you're convinced going on actual halfway only allows you to outrun your responsibility to wash the dishes!
• Believe you can, and you're halfway there; most of us just might be stuck at five miles in a food coma.
• Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground, but if you trip, don’t forget to laugh!
• Believe you can and you're halfway there—unless your obstacle is a sofa, then it's just a total reevaluation of life choices.
• Do what you can, with what you have, where you are, but don't forget to have a snack first.
• Believe you can, and you’re halfway there. Unless you need to take a nap—then that's the other half.
• Believe you can and you're halfway there—just make sure the other half prefers a cozy chair.
• Believe you can and you're halfway there, but remember to take a snack break or two on the way.
• Courage isn't having the strength to go on, it's going on when you have no strength.
• Believe you can and you're halfway there, but don't forget to pack snacks for the journey!
• Believe you can and you're halfway there; if you do it with style, you're already at the doorstep.
• Believe you can and you're halfway there; ensuring the halfway house serves only good coffee is the real challenge!
• Believe you can, and you’re halfway there. Now, the other half involves snacks.
• Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground. Unless you are tied up in paperwork—then maybe just balance it all on your head!
• Believe you can and you're halfway there. The other half involves an awkward robot dance!