Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919,) nicknamed Teddy, was an American politician who served as the popular 26th president of the United States 1901–09. The first American to win a Nobel Prize in 1906, he was also an author, naturalist, explorer, and historian.

Born in New York City of Dutch and Scottish descent, Roosevelt studied at Harvard. He gained national celebrity as the organizer of the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War (1898.) He became Republican governor of New York State in 1899, and vice president in 1901. Roosevelt became president after the assassination of William McKinley.

A vigorous progressive, Roosevelt moved to control monopolies through anti-trust legislation. Overseas, he expanded America’s power and prestige, gaining the Panama Canal, and taking an increasing role in world affairs. His intervention after the Russo-Japanese War earned him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize.

After retiring in 1909, Roosevelt went on a hunting trip in Central Africa. He returned to America and was drawn into politics. He disagreed with the policies of his successor, President William Taft. Roosevelt challenged Taft for the presidency in 1912 as leader of the National Progressive Party (Bull Moose Party.) The ensuing Republican split produced a Democratic victory, and Woodrow Wilson became president.

Subsequently, Roosevelt explored the Rio da Dúvida (“River of Doubt”) in Brazil, and he campaigned for U.S. intervention during World War I. A gifted scholar, he composed more than thirty books on such diverse topics as American ideals, ranching, hunting, and zoology.

The teddy bear is named after Theodore Roosevelt—the result of his refusal to shoot a bear cub during a hunting trip. Too, Roosevelt was a fifth cousin of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) and an uncle of FDR’s wife Eleanor Roosevelt.

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Inspirational Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Don’t hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting, but never hit soft.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Temper, Strength, Honor, Action

Industry and determination can do anything that genius and advantage can do and many things that they cannot.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Perseverance, Work

Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Work

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.
Theodore Roosevelt

The cornerstone of this Republic, as of all free government, is respect for and obedience to the law. Where we permit the law to be defied or evaded, whether by rich man or poor man, by black man or white, we are by just so much weakening the bonds of our civilization and increasing the chances of its overthrow, and of the substitution therefore of a system in which there shall be violent alternations of anarchy and tyranny.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Laws

Men who fear the strenuous life believe in that cloistered life which saps the hardy virtues in a nation as it saps them in the individual, or else they are wedded to the base spirit of gain and greed which recognize in commercialism the be-all and end-all of national life, instead of realizing that, though an indispensable element, it is, after all, but one of many elements that go to make up true national greatness
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Wilderness

The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Crime, Boldness

Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Wilderness

Absence and death are the same—only that in death there is no suffering.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Absence

Though conditions have grown puzzling in their complexity, though changes have been vast, yet we may remain absolutely sure of one thing; that now as ever in the past, and as it will ever be in the future, there can be no substitute for elemental virtues, for the elemental qualities to which we allude when we speak of a man, not only as a good man, but as emphatically a man. We can build up the standard of individual citizenship and individual well-being, we can raise the national standard and make it what it can and shall be made, only by each of us steadfastly keeping in mind that there can be no substitute for the world-old commonplace qualities of truth, justice, and courage, thrift, industry, common sense and genuine sympathy with the fellow feelings of others.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Virtue

Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Idealism, Ideals

We demand that big business give people a square deal; in return we must insist that when anyone engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right, he shall himself be given a square deal.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Business

Unless a man believes in applied morality he is certain to be merely a noxious public servant.
Theodore Roosevelt

A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards. More than that no man is entitled to, and less than that no man shall have.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Patriotism

In every such crisis the temptation to indecision, to non-action, is great, for excuses can always be found for non-action, and action means risk and the certainty of blame to the man who acts. But if the man is worth his salt he will do his duty, he will give the people the benefit of the doubt, and act in any way which their interests demand and which is not affirmatively prohibited by law, unheeding the likelihood that he himself, when the crisis is over and the danger past, will be assailed for what he has done.
Theodore Roosevelt

There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Help

Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Freedom

Don’t foul, don’t flinch—hit the line hard.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Perseverance, Bravery, Conviction, Courage

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Doing Your Best, Action, Effort, Secrets of Success, Time Management, Value of Time, Simplicity, Humankind

If we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world. We cannot avoid meeting great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Conviction

In doing your work in the great world, it is a safe plan to follow a rule I once heard on the football field: Don’t flinch, don’t fall; hit the line hard”.”
Theodore Roosevelt

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.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Unemployment, Work

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: America

While the Jews of the United States have remained loyal to their faith, and their race traditions, they have become indissolubly incorporated in the great army of American Citizenship.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Jews

The American people abhor a vacuum.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: America

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.
Theodore Roosevelt

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

The men with the muck-rake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Media

I wish all Americans would realize that American politics is world politics.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: America

One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called “weasel words.” When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a “weasel word” after another there is nothing left of the other.
Theodore Roosevelt
Topics: Words

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