Explore Quotes by Theodore Roosevelt

We are the heirs of the ages

We should not forget that it will be just as important to our descendants to be prosperous in their time as it is to us to be prosperous in our time.

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.

Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing, and commonsense."... "We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.""The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us.

The longer I live the more I think of the quality of fortitude... men who fall, pick themselves up and stumble on, fall again, and are trying to get back up when they die.

It tires me to talk to rich men. You expect a man of millions, the head of a great industry, to be a man worthhearing; but as a rule they don't know anything outside their own business.

No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned.

I put myself in the way of things happening, and they happened.

Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground.

It is true of the Nation, as of the individual, that the greatest doer must also be a great dreamer.

90% of the work in this country is done by people who don't feel good".

We want men who will fix their eyes on the stars, but who will not forget that their feet must walk on the ground.

The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.

Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.

No ability, no strength and force, no power of intellect or power of wealth, shall avail us, if we have not the root of right living in us.

We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong.

The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teachings were removed.

I have a perfect horror of words that are not backed up by deeds.

No man is above the law, and no man is below it.

Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth.

I am a strong individualist by personal habit, inheritance, and conviction; but it is a mere matter of common sense to recognize that the State, the community, the citizens acting together, can do a number of things better than if they were left to individual action.