Americanism is a question of principle, of idealism, of character. It is not a matter of birthplace, or creed, or line of descent.
Absence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that absence and death can be viewed similarly as both represent a separation from life, but death offers peace from suffering.
Theodore Roosevelt's quote explores the profound connection between absence and death, implying that both represent a form of loss. While absence from loved ones can cause emotional pain and suffering, death ultimately brings a cessation of all suffering, positioning it as a dark yet peaceful release. This perspective invites reflection on the nature of life and loss, suggesting that the finality of death might be more bearable than the lingering pain of absence.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a eulogy, one might use this quote to emphasize the peace that comes with death.
More from Theodore Roosevelt
All quotes βIt 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.
Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
Conservation means development as much as it does protection._x000D_ _x000D_ A man's usefulness depends upon his living up to his ideals insofar as he can.
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.
Similar quotes
If thinking is your fate, revere this fate with divine honour and sacrifice to it the best, the most beloved
Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.
Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered. Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are and to make new things like them. For everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.
I can concede that the government has no knowledge of the people, but I believe the people know less of the government. There are useless officials, evil, if you like, but there are also good ones, and these are not able to accomplish anything because they encounter an inert mass, the population that takes little part in matters that concern them.
Hope, insofar as it is hope of resurrection, is the living contradiction of what it proceeds from and what is placed under the sign of the Cross and death.
It is tempting to think of this form of insomnia, the inability to fall asleep, as a disease of agency and control: the inability to relinquish high self-reflexive consciousness for the vulnerable, ignorant regions of slumber in which we know not what we do.