Theodore Roosevelt

“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.”

“Generally the thunder-storms came in the afternoon, but once I saw one at sunrise, driving down the high mountain valleys toward us. It was a very beautiful and almost terrible sight; for the sun rose behind the storm, and shone through the gusty rifts, lighting the mountain-crests here and there, while the plain below lay shrouded in the lingering night. The angry, level rays edged the dark clouds with crimson, and turned the downpour into sheets of golden rain; in the valleys the glimmering mists were tinted every wild hue; and the remotest heavens were lit with flaming glory.”

“Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.”

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

“Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.”

“I have only a second rate brain, but I think I have a capacity for action.”

“That was a good mark in Latin, and I am pleased with your steady improvement in it.”

“Our fight is a fundamental fight against both of the old corrupt party machines, for both are under the dominion of the plunder league of the professional politicians who are controlled and sustained by the great beneficiaries of privilege and reaction.”

“Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground.”

“Absence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering.”

“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.”

“We should not take part in acting a lie any more than in telling a lie. Weshould not say that men are equal where they are not equal, nor proceed uponthe assumption that there is an equality where it does not exist; but we shouldstrive to bring about a measurable equality, at least to the extent of preventingthe inequality which is due to force or fraud.”

“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.”

“When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.”

“Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.”

“A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.”

“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.”

“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

“The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.”

“Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.”