A man's usefulness depends on his living up to his ideals insofar as he can. It is hard to fail but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune, make for a finer, nobler type of manhood. Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die; and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life.
Theodore RooseveltNo people ever yet benefited by riches if their prosperity corrupted their virtue.
Theodore RooseveltWhat counts in a man or in a nation is not what the man or the nation can do, but what he or it actually does.
Theodore RooseveltWe have room but for one Language here and that is the English Language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans of American nationality and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house.
Theodore RooseveltAny man who tries to excite class hatred, sectional hate, hate of creeds, any kind of hatred in our community, though he may affect to do it in the interest of the class he is addressing, is in the long run with absolute certainly that class's own worst enemy.
Theodore RooseveltThe president is that invisible force that makes a school of fish suddenly change direction, so that everyone 'ohhs' and 'ahhs' at the glimmering mass and only later wonders what makes them move in that way. I read somewhere-_Harper's_, I'm fairly certain-that the fish are only avoiding pockets of extra cold water.
Theodore Roosevelt