Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done 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 and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

- From a speech given in Paris at the Sorbonne in 1910

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

~ Theodore Roosevelt

The country's honor must be upheld at home and abroad.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only hundred percent Americanism.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

- speech, July 19, 1918

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

~ Theodore Roosevelt

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.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he should be able and willing to pull his weight.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

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

~ Theodore Roosevelt

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

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

~ Theodore Roosevelt

If I have erred, I err in company with Abraham Lincoln.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

It is better to be faithful than famous.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

He has been called a mediocre man; but this is unwarranted flattery. He was a politician of monumental littleness.

~ Theodore Roosevelt