Mr. T. Roosevelt, where are you now?
In the words of men more eloquent then myself.
There is a New America every morning when we wake up. It is upon us whether we will it or not.
Adlai E. Stevenson Jr. (1900 - 1965)
America's greatest strength, and its greatest weakness, is our belief in second chances, our belief that we can always start over, that things can be made better.
Anthony Walton
There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.
Bill Clinton (1946 - )
There's the country of America, which you have to defend, but there's also the idea of America. America is more than just a country, it's an idea. An idea that's supposed to be contagious.
Bono (1960 - ), Oprah Winfrey Show, 2002
I see America, not in the setting sun of a black night of despair ahead of us, I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God. I see great days ahead, great days possible to men and women of will and vision.
Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967)
America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world.
Dinesh D'Souza
There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)
America has never been an empire. We may be the only great power in history that had the chance, and refused - preferring greatness to power and justice to glory.
George W. Bush (1946 - ), speech, November 19, 1999
America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens.
George W. Bush (1946 - ), Inaugural address, 2001
America will never run... And we will always be grateful that liberty has found such brave defenders.
George W. Bush (1946 - )
By heritage and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand.
George W. Bush (1946 - ), Speech to the United Nations, September 12, 2002
What's right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity - intellect and resources - to do some thing about them.
Henry Ford II (1917 - 1987)
America - a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.
Herbert Hoover (1874 - 1964)
Our American values are not luxuries but necessities, not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself. Our common vision of a free and just society is our greatest source of cohesion at home and strength abroad, greater than the bounty of our material blessings.
Jimmy Carter (1924 - )
I believe America's best days are ahead of us because I believe that the future belongs to freedom, not to fear.
John Kerry (1943 - )
america has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.
Louis D. Brandeis (1856 - 1941)
America is not merely a nation but a nation of nations.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908 - 1973)
Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.
Margaret Thatcher (1925 - )
I don't measure America by its achievement but by its potential.
Shirley Chisholm (1924 - 2005)
I just want to say this. I want to say it gently but I want to say it firmly: There is a tendency for the world to say to America, "the big problems of the world are yours, you go and sort them out," and then to worry when America wants to sort them out.
Tony Blair (1953 - )
Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people.
Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)
The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.
Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)
America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses.
Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924)
Just what is it that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people.
Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924)
America has never been united by blood or birth or soil.
We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds,
lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens.
Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them.
And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.
--George W. Bush
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,
as them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
--Declaration of Independence
“"The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism.... It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn." --George Washington”
“We believe that what matters most is not narrow appeals masquerading as values, but the shared values that show the true face of America; not narrow values that divide us, but the shared values that unite us: family, faith, hard work, opportunity and responsibility for all, so that every child, every adult, every parent, every worker in America has an equal shot at living up to their God-given potential. That is the American dream and the American value.”
Senator John Kerry quotes (American Senator, b.1943)
“America now stands as the world's foremost power. We should be proud: Not since the age of the Romans have one people achieved such preeminence. But we are not Romans; we do not seek an empire. We are Americans, trustees of a vision and a heritage that commit us to the values of democracy and the universal cause of human rights.”
iilana
Senator John Kerry quotes (American Senator, b.1943)
And finally, some words from the greatest leader in American History.
Not all of them are about America, though most are. The few that aren't are great advice about life. Read them, believe them and follow them, and be not only a better american, but a better person. they are much the same thing.
"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 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 up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
"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."
New York State Fair, Syracuse, September 7, 1903
"A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards. More than that no man is entitled, and less than that no man shall have."
Speech to veterans, Springfield, IL, July 4, 1903
"We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when anyone engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal."
Letter to Sir Edward Gray, November 15, 1913
May 7, 1918
Women's Rights
Theodore Roosevelt was in the forefront of thinking in his day, advocating for women's rights. His undergraduate thesis at Harvard was on this topic.
"Viewed purely in the abstract, I think there can be no question that women should have equal rights with men."
"Especially as regards the laws relating to marriage there should be the most absolute equality between the two sexes. I do not think the woman should assume the man's name."
"The Practicability of Equalizing Men and Women before the Law"
Senior thesis at Harvard, 1880
"Much can be done by law towards putting women on a footing of complete and entire equal rights with man - including the right to vote, the right to hold and use property, and the right to enter any profession she desires on the same terms as the man."
"Women should have free access to every field of labor which they care to enter, and when their work is as valuable as that of a man it should be paid as highly."
An Autobiography, 1913
"Working women have the same need to protection that working men have; the ballot is as necessary for one class as to the other; we do not believe that with the two sexes there is identity of function; but we do believe there should be equality of right."
Speech, National Convention of the Progressive Party, Chicago, IL, August 6, 1912
"The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name."
"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed."
Chicago, IL, April 10, 1899
"Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground."
The Groton School, Groton, MA, May 24, 1904
"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."
"Arbor Day - A Message to the School-Children of the United States" April 15, 1907
"There can be no greater issue than that of conservation in this country."
Confession of Faith Speech, Progressive National Convention, Chicago, IL, August 6, 1912
"Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the 'the game belongs to the people.' So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The 'greatest good for the greatest number' applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method."
A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open, 1916
"The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others."
Address to the Deep Waterway Convention, Memphis, TN, October 4, 1907
Other Quotes
"Thrice happy is the nation that has a glorious history. 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 gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
"The Strenuous Life"
"Is America a weakling, to shrink from the work of the great world powers? No! The young giant of the West stands on a continent and clasps the crest of an ocean in either hand. Our nation, glorious in youth and strength, looks into the future with eager eyes and rejoices as a strong man to run a race."
Letter to John Hay, American Ambassador to the Court of St. James, London, Written in Washington, DC, June 7, 1897
"A healthy-minded boy should feel hearty contempt for the coward and even more hearty indignation for the boy who bullies girls or small boys, or tortures animals."
"What we have a right to expect of the American boy is that he shall turn out to be a good American man."
"The American Boy," St. Nicholas Magazine, May 1900
"There are good men and bad men of all nationalities, creeds and colors; and if this world of ours is ever to become what we hope some day it may become, it must be by the general recognition that the man's heart and soul, the man's worth and actions, determine his standing."
Letter, Oyster Bay, NY, September 1, 1903
"If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base and sordid creature, no matter how successful."
Letter to his son Kermit, quoted in Theodore Roosevelt by Joseph Bucklin Bishop, 1915
"There are two things that I want you to make up your minds to: first, that you are going to have a good time as long as you live - I have no use for the sour-faced man - and next, that you are going to do something worthwhile, that you are going to work hard and do the things you set out to do."
Talk to schoolchildren in Oyster Bay, Christmastime 1898
"I have a perfect horror of words that are not backed up by deeds."
Oyster Bay, NY, July 7, 1915
"The object of government is the welfare of the people."
"Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us."
"A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user."
An Autobiography, 1913
"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."
Des Moines, Iowa, November 4, 1910
"To borrow a simile from the football field, we believe that men must play fair, but that there must be no shirking, and that the success can only come to the player who 'hits the line hard.' "
Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay, NY, October 1897
"Let us speak courteously, deal fairly, and keep ourselves armed and ready."
San Francisco, CA, May 13, 1903
"This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in."
Chicago, IL, June 17, 1912
"There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother."
Pasadena, CA, May 8, 1903
"It is true of the Nation, as of the individual, that the greatest doer must also be a great dreamer."
Berkeley, CA, 1911
"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility."
Abilene, KS, May 2, 1903
“Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihood-the virtues that made America. 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.”
Theodore Roosevelt quotes (American 26th US President (1901-09), 1858-1919)
Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
There is a New America every morning when we wake up. It is upon us whether we will it or not.
Adlai E. Stevenson Jr. (1900 - 1965)
America's greatest strength, and its greatest weakness, is our belief in second chances, our belief that we can always start over, that things can be made better.
Anthony Walton
There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.
Bill Clinton (1946 - )
There's the country of America, which you have to defend, but there's also the idea of America. America is more than just a country, it's an idea. An idea that's supposed to be contagious.
Bono (1960 - ), Oprah Winfrey Show, 2002
I see America, not in the setting sun of a black night of despair ahead of us, I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God. I see great days ahead, great days possible to men and women of will and vision.
Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967)
America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world.
Dinesh D'Souza
There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)
America has never been an empire. We may be the only great power in history that had the chance, and refused - preferring greatness to power and justice to glory.
George W. Bush (1946 - ), speech, November 19, 1999
America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens.
George W. Bush (1946 - ), Inaugural address, 2001
America will never run... And we will always be grateful that liberty has found such brave defenders.
George W. Bush (1946 - )
By heritage and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand.
George W. Bush (1946 - ), Speech to the United Nations, September 12, 2002
What's right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity - intellect and resources - to do some thing about them.
Henry Ford II (1917 - 1987)
America - a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.
Herbert Hoover (1874 - 1964)
Our American values are not luxuries but necessities, not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself. Our common vision of a free and just society is our greatest source of cohesion at home and strength abroad, greater than the bounty of our material blessings.
Jimmy Carter (1924 - )
I believe America's best days are ahead of us because I believe that the future belongs to freedom, not to fear.
John Kerry (1943 - )
america has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.
Louis D. Brandeis (1856 - 1941)
America is not merely a nation but a nation of nations.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908 - 1973)
Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.
Margaret Thatcher (1925 - )
I don't measure America by its achievement but by its potential.
Shirley Chisholm (1924 - 2005)
I just want to say this. I want to say it gently but I want to say it firmly: There is a tendency for the world to say to America, "the big problems of the world are yours, you go and sort them out," and then to worry when America wants to sort them out.
Tony Blair (1953 - )
Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people.
Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)
The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.
Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)
America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses.
Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924)
Just what is it that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people.
Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924)
America has never been united by blood or birth or soil.
We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds,
lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens.
Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them.
And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.
--George W. Bush
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,
as them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
--Declaration of Independence
“"The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism.... It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn." --George Washington”
“We believe that what matters most is not narrow appeals masquerading as values, but the shared values that show the true face of America; not narrow values that divide us, but the shared values that unite us: family, faith, hard work, opportunity and responsibility for all, so that every child, every adult, every parent, every worker in America has an equal shot at living up to their God-given potential. That is the American dream and the American value.”
Senator John Kerry quotes (American Senator, b.1943)
“America now stands as the world's foremost power. We should be proud: Not since the age of the Romans have one people achieved such preeminence. But we are not Romans; we do not seek an empire. We are Americans, trustees of a vision and a heritage that commit us to the values of democracy and the universal cause of human rights.”
iilana
Senator John Kerry quotes (American Senator, b.1943)
And finally, some words from the greatest leader in American History.
Not all of them are about America, though most are. The few that aren't are great advice about life. Read them, believe them and follow them, and be not only a better american, but a better person. they are much the same thing.
"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 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 up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
"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."
New York State Fair, Syracuse, September 7, 1903
"A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards. More than that no man is entitled, and less than that no man shall have."
Speech to veterans, Springfield, IL, July 4, 1903
"We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when anyone engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal."
Letter to Sir Edward Gray, November 15, 1913
May 7, 1918
Women's Rights
Theodore Roosevelt was in the forefront of thinking in his day, advocating for women's rights. His undergraduate thesis at Harvard was on this topic.
"Viewed purely in the abstract, I think there can be no question that women should have equal rights with men."
"Especially as regards the laws relating to marriage there should be the most absolute equality between the two sexes. I do not think the woman should assume the man's name."
"The Practicability of Equalizing Men and Women before the Law"
Senior thesis at Harvard, 1880
"Much can be done by law towards putting women on a footing of complete and entire equal rights with man - including the right to vote, the right to hold and use property, and the right to enter any profession she desires on the same terms as the man."
"Women should have free access to every field of labor which they care to enter, and when their work is as valuable as that of a man it should be paid as highly."
An Autobiography, 1913
"Working women have the same need to protection that working men have; the ballot is as necessary for one class as to the other; we do not believe that with the two sexes there is identity of function; but we do believe there should be equality of right."
Speech, National Convention of the Progressive Party, Chicago, IL, August 6, 1912
"The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name."
"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed."
Chicago, IL, April 10, 1899
"Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground."
The Groton School, Groton, MA, May 24, 1904
"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."
"Arbor Day - A Message to the School-Children of the United States" April 15, 1907
"There can be no greater issue than that of conservation in this country."
Confession of Faith Speech, Progressive National Convention, Chicago, IL, August 6, 1912
"Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the 'the game belongs to the people.' So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The 'greatest good for the greatest number' applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method."
A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open, 1916
"The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others."
Address to the Deep Waterway Convention, Memphis, TN, October 4, 1907
Other Quotes
"Thrice happy is the nation that has a glorious history. 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 gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
"The Strenuous Life"
"Is America a weakling, to shrink from the work of the great world powers? No! The young giant of the West stands on a continent and clasps the crest of an ocean in either hand. Our nation, glorious in youth and strength, looks into the future with eager eyes and rejoices as a strong man to run a race."
Letter to John Hay, American Ambassador to the Court of St. James, London, Written in Washington, DC, June 7, 1897
"A healthy-minded boy should feel hearty contempt for the coward and even more hearty indignation for the boy who bullies girls or small boys, or tortures animals."
"What we have a right to expect of the American boy is that he shall turn out to be a good American man."
"The American Boy," St. Nicholas Magazine, May 1900
"There are good men and bad men of all nationalities, creeds and colors; and if this world of ours is ever to become what we hope some day it may become, it must be by the general recognition that the man's heart and soul, the man's worth and actions, determine his standing."
Letter, Oyster Bay, NY, September 1, 1903
"If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base and sordid creature, no matter how successful."
Letter to his son Kermit, quoted in Theodore Roosevelt by Joseph Bucklin Bishop, 1915
"There are two things that I want you to make up your minds to: first, that you are going to have a good time as long as you live - I have no use for the sour-faced man - and next, that you are going to do something worthwhile, that you are going to work hard and do the things you set out to do."
Talk to schoolchildren in Oyster Bay, Christmastime 1898
"I have a perfect horror of words that are not backed up by deeds."
Oyster Bay, NY, July 7, 1915
"The object of government is the welfare of the people."
"Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us."
"A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user."
An Autobiography, 1913
"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."
Des Moines, Iowa, November 4, 1910
"To borrow a simile from the football field, we believe that men must play fair, but that there must be no shirking, and that the success can only come to the player who 'hits the line hard.' "
Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay, NY, October 1897
"Let us speak courteously, deal fairly, and keep ourselves armed and ready."
San Francisco, CA, May 13, 1903
"This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in."
Chicago, IL, June 17, 1912
"There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother."
Pasadena, CA, May 8, 1903
"It is true of the Nation, as of the individual, that the greatest doer must also be a great dreamer."
Berkeley, CA, 1911
"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility."
Abilene, KS, May 2, 1903
“Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihood-the virtues that made America. 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.”
Theodore Roosevelt quotes (American 26th US President (1901-09), 1858-1919)
Truth, Justice, and the American Way.