Theodore Roosevelt
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.Collection: Success
When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.Collection: Work
People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.Collection: Leadership
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
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.
The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
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.
I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also.
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.
Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.
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!
Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.
The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.
The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.
Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.
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.
Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'
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.
The American people abhor a vacuum.
The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public.
The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
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.
No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.
It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.
No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president.Collection: Country
There is but one answer to terrorism and it is best delivered with a Winchester rifle.Collection: Rifles
This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.Collection: Inspiring
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 at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.Collection: Motivational
Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.Collection: Bullying
What a man does for himself, dies with him. What a man does for his community lives long after he's gone.Collection: Men
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.Collection: Country
There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.Collection: Loyalty
Nothing worth having was ever achieved without effort.Collection: Moving
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.Collection: Responsibility
Do Something Now. If not you, who? If not here, where? If not now, when?Collection: Ifs
It is the people, and not the judges, who are entitled to say what their constitution means, for the constitution is theirs, it belongs to them and not to their servants in office—any other theory is incompatible with the foundation principles of our government.Collection: Mean
If we put corrupt men in public office and sneeringly acquiesce in their corruptions, then we are wrong ourselves.Collection: Men
The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything. Do not be afraid to make mistakes providing you do not make the same one twice.Collection: Mistake
Most of us tiptoe through life in order to make it safely to death.Collection: Order
Of one man in especial, beyond anyone else, the citizens of a republic should beware, and that is of the man who appeals to them to support him on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the republic, that he will secure for those who elect him, in one shape or another, profit at the expense of other citizens of the republic. It makes no difference whether he appeals to class hatred or class interest, to religious or anti-religious prejudice. The man who makes such an appeal should always be presumed to make it for the sake of furthering his own interest.Collection: Religious
There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.Collection: Country
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.Collection: Criticism