Quotes by Teddy Roosevelt

Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt was born in N.Y. City in 1858, became Governor of New York in 1898. Was elected Vice President in 1900 and became, at 42, the youngest President after McKinley’s assassination in 1901. He served until 1909, and died in January, 1919.

Man in the Arena
One of the top three most requested quotes is that regarding the "man in the arena" or "not the critic"
"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

Below are additional quotations related to the more famous and later quote. These quotes taken from a cdrom - The Works of Theodore Roosevelt - National Edition, A PRODUCT OF H-BAR ENTERPRISES COPYRIGHT 1997
"...the man who really counts in the world is the doer, not the mere critic-the man who actually does the work, even if roughly and imperfectly, not the man who only talks or writes about how it ought to be done." (1891)
"Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger." (1894)

"No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care"
— Theodore Roosevelt

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
— Theodore Roosevelt

"It is true of the Nation, as of the individual, that the greatest doer must also be a great dreamer."
Berkeley, CA, 1911

"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.

"Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering."
— Theodore Roosevelt

"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 don't think any President ever enjoyed himself more than I did. Moreover, I don't think any ex-President ever enjoyed himself more."... "Success - the real success - does not depend upon the position you hold, but upon how you carry yourself in that position."
University of Cambridge, England, May 26, 1910

"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

"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"

"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

"No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."
— Theodore Roosevelt

"Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth."
— Theodore Roosevelt

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
— Theodore Roosevelt

Presidential Criticism
Recently several people have written to ask us (The Theodore Roosevelt Association) about a viewpoint TR had on criticism of the presidency. This quote was part of an editorial he wrote for the "Kansas City Star" during World War I.
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."
"Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star", 149
May 7, 1918.

"A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user."
An Autobiography, 1913.

"I am a part of everything that I have read."
— Theodore Roosevelt