Top 780 Quotes & Sayings by Theodore Roosevelt
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American president Theodore Roosevelt.
Last updated on April 21, 2025.
Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.
With self-discipline most anything is possible.
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.
It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.
The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.
I am a part of everything that I have read.
The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.
To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.
I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.
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.
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.
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.
The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.
People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'
The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.
A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.
The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.
The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.
When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.
The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.
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!
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.
Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.
Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.
Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.
Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
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.
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.
Absence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering.
Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.
Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.
Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.
A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.
Believe you can and you're halfway there.
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 boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.
The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.
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