Theodore Roosevelt quotes

“People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.”

— 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

“Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft.”

— 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

“Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

“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 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 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

“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

“Appraisals are where you get together with your team leader and agree what an outstanding member of the team you are, how much your contribution has been valued, what massive potential you have and, in recognition of all this, would you mind having your salary halved.”

— 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

“It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.”

— 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

“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.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

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

— Theodore Roosevelt

“The government is us; we are the government, you and I.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

“Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

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

— Theodore Roosevelt

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

— Theodore Roosevelt

“Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

“Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.”

— 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

“The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

“The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.”

— 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

“I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

“The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.”

— 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

“Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.”

— Theodore Roosevelt