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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.

Theodore Roosevelt
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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.
Theodore Roosevelt
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.
Theodore Roosevelt
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.
Theodore Roosevelt
Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.
Theodore Roosevelt
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
Theodore Roosevelt
For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.
Theodore Roosevelt
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Theodore Roosevelt
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
Theodore Roosevelt
The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.
Theodore Roosevelt
With self-discipline most anything is possible.
Theodore Roosevelt
The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.
Theodore Roosevelt
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.
Theodore Roosevelt
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.
Theodore Roosevelt
The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
Theodore Roosevelt
No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.
Theodore Roosevelt
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt
Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.
Theodore Roosevelt
Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
Theodore Roosevelt
Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.
Theodore Roosevelt
Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.
Theodore Roosevelt
Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.
Theodore Roosevelt
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.
Theodore Roosevelt
When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.
Theodore Roosevelt
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public.
Theodore Roosevelt
It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
Theodore Roosevelt
People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
Theodore Roosevelt
There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.
Theodore Roosevelt
Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.
Theodore Roosevelt
Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.
Theodore Roosevelt
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.
Theodore Roosevelt
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.
Theodore Roosevelt
The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.
Theodore Roosevelt
Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
Theodore Roosevelt
I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.
Theodore Roosevelt
The American people abhor a vacuum.
Theodore Roosevelt
Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
Theodore Roosevelt
Absence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering.
Theodore Roosevelt
A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
Theodore Roosevelt
Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.
Theodore Roosevelt
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.
Theodore Roosevelt
Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.
Theodore Roosevelt
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.
Theodore Roosevelt
Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.
Theodore Roosevelt
It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.
Theodore Roosevelt
The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.
Theodore Roosevelt
To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Theodore Roosevelt
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.
Theodore Roosevelt
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.
Theodore Roosevelt