Theodore Roosevelt Quotes - Page 18

• Now, it is very necessary that we should not flinch from seeing what is vile and debasing. There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck rake; and there are times and places where this service is the most needed of all the services that can be performed. But the man who never does anything else, who never thinks or speaks or writes, save of his feats with the muck rake, speedily becomes, not a help but one of the most potent forces for evil.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Writing, Men, Thinking

  The Man with the Muck-rake, delivered 14 April 1906

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• [Among the books he chooses, a statesman] ought to read interesting books on history and government, and books of science and philosophy; and really good books on these subjects are as enthralling as any fiction ever written in prose or verse.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Philosophy, Book, Science

  Theodore Roosevelt (2013). “Bully!”, p.257, Simon and Schuster

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• If I were a factory employee, a workman on the railroads or a wage-earner of any sort, I would undoubtedly join the union of my trade. If I disapproved of its policy, I would join in order to fight that policy; if the union leaders were dishonest, I would join in order to put them out. I believe in the union and I believe that all men who are benefited by the union are morally bound to help to the extent of their power in the common interests advanced by the union.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Believe, Fighting, Men

  Theodore Roosevelt (2013). “Bully!”, p.366, Simon and Schuster

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• I have no business to feel downcast or querulous merely because when so much as been given me I have not had even more.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Grieving, Given, Feels

  Theodore Roosevelt (1951). “Letters of Theodore Roosevelt: The square deal, 1901-1905”

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• Gradually the true Mason gains experience in using these working tools and can observe subtler and subtler indications of personal flaws.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Tools, Gains, Masonic

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• I am a man who believes with all fervor and intensity in moderate progress. Too often men who believe in moderation believe in it only moderately and tepidly and leave fervor to the extremists of the two sides - the extremists of reaction and the extremists of progress. Washington, Lincoln . . . are men who, to my mind, stand as the types of what wide, progressive leadership should be.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Believe, Men, Two Sides

  Theodore Roosevelt (1954). “The days of Armageddon, 1900-1914”

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• We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted...So any nation which in its youth lives only for the day, reaps without sowing, and consumes without husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal whose labor could with difficulty find him the bare means of life.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Mean, Men, Growing

  Theodore Roosevelt (1941). “Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia”

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• Those who oppose all reform will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Business, Selfish, Ruins

  Theodore Roosevelt (1926). “The Works of Theodore Roosevelt”

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• The words of the Declaration of Independence, as given effect by Washington...are to be accepted as real, and not as empty phrases...that in very truth this is a government by the people themselves, that the Constitution is theirs, that the courts are theirs, that all the government agents and agencies are theirs... It is for the people themselves finally to decide all questions of public policy and to have their decision made effective...We here, in America, hold in our hands the hope of the world.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Real, Agency, Government

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• We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources ... But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil and the gas are exhausted.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Nature, Iron, Oil

  Theodore Roosevelt (2012). “In the Words of Theodore Roosevelt: Quotations from the Man in the Arena”, p.73, Cornell University Press

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• Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us to restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wildlife and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Generations, Minorities, Purpose

  Theodore Roosevelt (2010). “The Green Roosevelt: Theodore Roosevelt in Appreciation of Wilderness, Wildlife, and Wild Places”, p.359, Cambria Press

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• 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.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Country, Rooms, Born

  Theodore Roosevelt (2005). “Fear God and Take Your Own Part”, p.361, Cosimo, Inc.

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• For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Running, Army, Risk

  Theodore Roosevelt (2015). “Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century”, p.51, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• I do not intend that our natural resources shall be exploited by the few against the interests of the many.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Environment, Natural, Resources

  Theodore Roosevelt (1913). “Progressive Principles: Selections from Addresses Made During the Presidential Campaign of 1912”

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• Don't foul, don't flinch-hit the line hard.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Perseverance, Courage, Lines

  Theodore Roosevelt (2015). “Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century”, p.78, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• The function of our Government is to insure to all its citizens, now and hereafter, their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If we of this generation destroy the resources from which our children would otherwise derive their livelihood, we reduce the capacity of our land to support a population, and so either degrade the standard of living or deprive the coming generations of their fight to life on this continent.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Children, Fighting, Pursuit Of Happiness

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• While the nation that has dared to be great, that has had the will and the power to change the destiny of the ages, in the end must die, yet no less surely the nation that has played the part of the weakling must also die; and whereas the nation that has done nothing leaves nothing behind it, the nation that has done a great work really continues, though in changed form, to live forevermore.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Destiny, Age, Done

  Theodore Roosevelt (2015). “Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century”, p.81, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Now and then we hear the wilder voices of the wilderness, from animals that in the hours of darkness do not fear the neighborhood of man: the coyotes wail like dismal ventriloquists, or the silence may be broken by the snorting and stamping of a deer.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Animal, Men, Voice

  Theodore Roosevelt (1983). “Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail”, p.39, U of Nebraska Press

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• I wish very much that the wrong people could be prevented entirely from breeding

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Eugenics, People, Wish

  Theodore Roosevelt (1926). “The Works of Theodore Roosevelt”

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• Rarely has any people enjoyed greater prosperity than we are now enjoying. For this we render heartfelt and solemn thanks to the Giver of Good; and we seek to praise Him -not by words only -but by deeds, by the way in which we do our duty to ourselves and to our fellow men.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Men, People, Heartfelt

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• Perhaps the most incapable Executive that ever filled the presidential chair...it would be difficult to imagine a man less fit to guide the state with honor and safety through the stormy times that marked the opening of the present century.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Men, Safety, Presidential

  Theodore Roosevelt (1987). “The Naval War of 1812, Or, The History of the United States Navy During the Last War with Great Britain: To which is Appended an Account of the Battle of New Orleans”, Annapolis, Md. : Naval Institute Press

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• Practical efficiency is common, and lofty idealism not uncommon; it is the combination which is necessary, and the combination is rare

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Common, Efficiency, Combination

  Theodore Roosevelt (2013). “Bully!”, p.4, Simon and Schuster

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• Although not a very old man, I have yet lived a great deal in my life, and I have known sorrow too bitter and joy too keen to allow me to become either cast down or elated for more than a very brief period over any success or defeat.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Men, Joy, Sorrow

  Theodore Roosevelt (1951). “Letters, Selected and Edited by Elting E. Morison”

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• Do nothing to mar its grandeur ... keep it for your children, your children's children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Children, Sight, Mars

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• It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Use It Or Lose It, Way, Nations

  Theodore Roosevelt, Paul H. Jeffers (1998). “The Bully Pulpit: A Teddy Roosevelt Book of Quotations”, p.29, Taylor Trade Publications

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