Teddy Roosevelt Quotes: Wisdom and Inspiration from the 26th President

Speak softly and carry a big stick.

Believe you can and you’re halfway there.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

The best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

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.

The man who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

Believe you can and you’re halfway there.

I am only an average man, but by George, I work harder at it than the average man.

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

Teddy Roosevelt Quotes: Wisdom and Inspiration from the 26th President part 2

I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do!

I have always felt that the one mission of a national park is recreation.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Not guilty’.

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.

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.

To sit home, read one’s favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men’s doing.

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 errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in 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 fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.

Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

I have always believed that the way this country has been moving closer and closer as a unit has been through our educational system.

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.

The joy in life is his who has the heart to demand it.

The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight.

Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.

It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization.

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

We must dare to be great; and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage.

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 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.

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

In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americanism.

A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.

To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.

The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer.

The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.

Conservation means development as much as it does protection.

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 to, and less than that no man shall have.

The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.

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