Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

“Believe you can and you're halfway there.”

“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.”

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.”

“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”

“A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.”

“Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.”

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

“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.”

“There are two things that I want you to make up your minds to: first, that you are going to have a good time as long as you live – I have no use for the sour-faced man – and next, that you are going to do something worthwhile, that you are going to work hard and do the things you set out to do.”

“I have always been fond of the West African proverb: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”

“I believe in a strong executive; I believe in power. While President, I have been President, emphatically; I have used every ounce of power there was in the office.… I do not believe that any President ever had as thoroughly good a time as I have had, or has ever enjoyed himself as much.”

“If when the severe weather comes on there is a coal famine I dread to think of the suffering, in parts of our great cities especially, and I fear there will be fuel riots of as bad a type as any bread riots we have ever seen.”

“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; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds.”

“I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.”

“Practical efficiency is common, and lofty idealism not uncommon; it is the combination which is necessary, and the combination is rare. Love of peace is common among weak, shortsighted, timid, and lazy persons; and on the other hand courage is found among many men of evil temper and bad character. Neither quality shall by itself avail.”

“Surely there never was a fight better worth making than the one in which we are in. It little matters what befalls any one of us who for the time being stands in the forefront of the battle. I hope we shall win, and I believe that if we can wake the people to what the fight really means we shall win. But, win or lose, we shall not falter.”

“To feel that one has inspired a boy to conduct that has resulted in his death has a pretty serious side for a father.”