Quotes By Theodore Roosevelt

A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

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.

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

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

No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.

I am a part of everything that I have read.

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.

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.

I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.

The American people abhor a vacuum.

Absence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public.

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

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.

The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.

Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

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.

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 one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.

There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

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.

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.

Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.

Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.