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A Finer Body Of Men Has Never Been Gathered By Any Nation Than The Men Who Have Done The Work Of Building The Panama Canal; The Conditions Under Which They Have Lived And Have Done Their Work Have Been Better Than In Any Similar Work Ever Undertaken In The Tropics; They Have All Felt An Eager Pride In Their Work; And They Have Made Not Only America But The Whole World Their Debtors By What They Have Accomplished.

-Theodore Roosevelt

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A Finer Body Of

Theodore Roosevelt

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A Finer Body Of Men Has Never Been Gathered By Any Nation Than The Men Who Have Done The Work Of Building The Panama Canal; The Conditions Under Which They Have Lived And Have Done Their Work Have Been Better Than In Any Similar Work Ever Undertaken In The Tropics; They Have All Felt An Eager Pride In Their Work; And They Have Made Not Only America But The Whole World Their Debtors By What They Have Accomplished.

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Our Surest Protection Against Assault From Abroad Has Been Not All Our Guards, Gates And Guns, Or Even Our Two Oceans, But Our Essential Goodness As A People. Our Richest Asset Has Been Not Our Material Wealth But Our Values.

The Mother Is The One Supreme Asset Of National Life; She Is More Important By Far Than The Successful Statesman, Or Business Man, Or Artist, Or Scientist.

There Are No Words That Can Tell The Hidden Spirit Of The Wilderness, That Can Reveal Its Mystery, Its Melancholy And Its Charm. There Is A Delight In The Hardy Life Of The Open... Apart From This, Yet Mingled With It, Is The Strong Attraction Of The Silent Places, Of The Large Tropic Moons, And The Splendor Of The New Stars; Where The Wanderer Sees The Awful Glory Of Sunrise And Sunset In The Wide Waste Spaces Of The Earth, Unworn Of Man, And Changed Only By The Slow Change Of The Ages Through Time Everlasting.

We Americans Have Many Grave Problems To Solve, Many Threatening Evils To Fight, And Many Deeds To Do, If, As We Hope And Believe, We Have The Wisdom, The Strength, And The Courage And The Virtue To Do Them. But We Must Face Facts As They Are. We Must Neither Surrender Ourselves To A Foolish Optimism, Nor Succumb To A Timid And Ignoble Pessimism.

It Either Is Or Ought To Be Evident To Everyone That Business Has To Prosper Before Anyone Can Get Any Benefit From It.

All Constitutions, Those Of The States No Less Than That Of The Nation, Are Designed, And Must Be Interpreted And Administered So As To Fit Human Rights.

To Waste, To Destroy Our Natural Resources, To Skin And Exhaust The Land Instead Of Using It So As To Increase Its Usefulness, Will Result In Undermining In The Days Of Our Children The Very Prosperity Which We Ought By Right To Hand Down To Them Amplified And Developed.

There Is Nothing More Practical Than The Preservation Of Beauty, Than The Preservation Of Anything That Appeals To The Higher Emotions Of Mankind

To Discriminate Against A Thoroughly Upright Citizen Because He Belongs To Some Particular Church, Or Because, Like Abraham Lincoln, He Has Not Avowed His Allegiance To Any Church, Is An Outrage Against The Liberty Of Conscience, Which Is One Of The Foundations Of American Life.

The Leader Works In The Open And The Boss In Covert. The Leader Leads, And The Boss Drives.

Outstanding Leaders

In Name We Had The Declaration Of Independence In 1776; But We Gave The Lie By Our Acts To The Words Of The Declaration Of Independence Until 1865; And Words Count For Nothing Except In So Far As They Represent Acts.

There Is Something To Be Said For Government By A Great Aristocracy Which Has Furnished Leaders To The Nation In Peace And War For Generations; Even A Democrat Like Myself Must Admit This.

I Can No More Explain Why I Like "natural History" Than Why I Like California Canned Peaches; Nor Why I Do Not Care For That Enormous Brand Of Natural History Which Deals With Invertebrates Any More Than Why I Do Not Care For Brandied Peaches. All I Can Say Is That Almost As Soon As I Began To Read At All I Began To Like To Read About The Natural History Of Beasts And Birds And The More Formidable Or Interesting Reptiles And Fishes.

Life Is As If You Were Traveling A Ridge Crest. You Have The Gulf Of Inefficiency On One Side And The Gulf Of Wickedness On The Other, And It Helps Not To Have Avoided One Gulf If You Fall Into The Other.

We Have A Right To Expect That The Best Trained, The Best Educated Men On The Pacific Slope, The Rocky Mountains, And Great Plains States Will Take The Lead In The Preservation And Right Use Of Forests, In Securing The Right Use Of Waters, And In Seeing That Our Land Policy Is Not Twisted From Its Original Purpose, But Is Perpetuated By Amendment, By Change When Such Change Is Necessary In The Life Of That Purpose, The Purpose Being To Turn The Public Domain Into Farms Each To Be The Property Of The Man Who Actually Tills It And Makes His Home In It.

Conservation Means Development As Much As It Does Protection.

I Am Far From Underestimating The Importance Of Dividends, But I Rank Dividends Below Human Character.

Comparison Is The Thief Of Joy.

The American People Are Slow To Wrath, But When Their Wrath Is Once Kindled It Burns Like A Consuming Flame.

It's Not The Critic Who Counts, Nor The Man Who Points Out How The Strong Man Stumbles, Or Where The Doer Of The Deeds Could Have Done Better.

Nowhere, Not At Sea, Does A Man Feel More Lonely Than When Riding Over The Far-reaching, Seemingly Never-ending Plains.

Nothing Worth Having Comes Easy.

Difficult Times

Weasel Words From Mollycoddles Will Never Do When The Day Demands Prophetic Clarity From Greathearts. Manly Men Must Emerge For This Hour Of Trial.

He [lincoln] Had Mastered It {the Bible] Absolutely...mastered It So That He Became Almost 'a Man Of One Book', Who Knew That Book And Who Instinctively Put Into Practice What He Had Been Taught Therein.

My Power Vanishes Into Thin Air The Instant That My Fellow Citizens, Who Are Straight And Honest, Cease To Believe That I Represent Them And Fight For What Is Straight And Honest. That Is All The Strength That I Have.

Bodily Vigor Is Good, And Vigor Of Intellect Is Even Better, But Far Above Is Character.

There Is No Reason Why People Should Not Call Themselves Cubists, Or Octagonists, Or Parallelopipedonists, Orknights Oftheisoscelestriangle, Or Brothers Of The Cosine, If They So Desire; As Expressing Anything Serious And Permanent, One Term Is As Fatuous As Another.

To The Second End, We Hold That Minimum Wage Commissions Should Be Established In The Nation And In Each State To Inquire Into Wages Paid In Various Industries And To Determine The Standard Which The Public Ought To Sanction As A Minimum; And We Believe That, As A Present Installment Of What We Hope For In The Future, There Should Be At Once Established In The Nation And Its Several States Minimum Standards For The Wages Of Women, Taking The Present Massachusetts Law As A Basis From Which To Start And On Which To Improve.

I Dream Of Men Who Take The Next Step Instead Of Worrying About The Next Thousand Steps.

I Am A Part Of Everything That I Have Read.

If We Seek Merely Swollen, Slothful Ease And Ignoble Peace, If We Shrink From The Hard Contests Where Men Must Win At The Hazard Of Their Lives And At The Risk Of All They Hold Dear, Then Bolder And Stronger Peoples Will Pass Us By, And Will Win For Themselves The Domination Of The World.

Character, In The Long Run, Is The Decisive Factor In The Life Of An Individual And Of Nations Alike.

Free Speech Exercised Both Individually And Through A Free Press, Is A Necessity In Any Country Where People Are Themselves Free.

We Draw The Line Against Misconduct, Not Against Wealth.

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.

Courage Is Not Having The Strength To Go On, It Is Going On When You Don't Have The Strength. Industry And Determination Can Do Anything That Genius And Advantage Can Do And Many Things That They Cannot.

I Believe That The Next Half Century Will Determine If We Will Advance The Cause Of Christian Civilization Or Revert To The Horrors Of Brutal Paganism.

In Popular Government Results Worth While Can Only Be Achieved By Men Who Combine Worthy Ideals With Practical Good Sense.

I Enter A Most Earnest Plea That In Our Hurried And Rather Bustling Life Of Today We Do Not Lose The Hold That Our Forefathers Had On The Bible. I Wish To See The Bible Study As Much A Matter Of Course In The Secular Colleges As In The Seminary. No Educated Man Can Afford To Be Ignorant Of The Bible, And No Uneducated Man Can Afford To Be Ignorant Of The Bible.

Honesty First; Then Courage; Then Brains - And All Are Indispensable.

Of All Forms Of Tyranny The Least Attractive And The Most Vulgar Is The Tyranny Of Mere Wealth.

In The Western Hemisphere The Adherence Of The United States To The Monroe Doctrine May Force The United States, However Reluctantly, In Flagrant Cases Of Such Wrong Doing Or Impotence, To The Exercise Of An International Police Power.

My Experience...convinced Me That Tea Was Better Than Brandy, And During The Last Six Months In Afica I Took No Brandy, Even When Sick Taking Tea Instead.

Fertile Plains, Every Foot Of Them Tilled, Are Of The First Necessity; But Great Natural Playgrounds Of Mountain, Forest, Cliff-walled Lake, And Brawling Brook Are Also Necessary To The Full And Many-sided Development Of A Fine Race.

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.

When The Time Of Danger Comes, All Americans, Whatever Their Social Standing, Whatever Their Creed, Whatever The Training They Have Received, No Matter From What Section Of The Country They Have Come, Stand Together As Men, As Americans, And Are Content To Face The Same Fate And Do The Same Duties Because Fundamentally They All Alike Have The Common Purpose To Serve The Glorious Flag Of Their Common Country.

We Do Not Admire The Man Of Timid Peace. We Admire The Man Who Embodies Victorious Effort; The Man Who Never Wrongs His Neighbor, Who Is Prompt To Help A Friend, But Who Has Those Virile Qualities Necessary To Win In The Stern Strife Of Actual Life.

You Can't Choose Your Potential, But You Can Choose To Fulfill It.

The Woman Has The Right To Be Emancipated From The Position Of A Drudge Or A Toy. She Is Entitled To A Full Equality In Rights With Man.

The Settler And Pioneer Have At Bottom Had Justice On Their Side; This Great Continent Could Not Have Been Kept As Nothing But A Game Preserve For Squalid Savages.

Everything Is Un-american That Tends Either To Government By A Plutocracy Or Government By A Mob. To Divide Along The Lines Of Section Or Caste Or Creed Is Un-american. All Privileges Based On Wealth, And All Enmity To Honest Men Merely Because They Are Wealthy, Are Un-american-both Of Them Equally So. The Things That Will Destroy America Are Prosperity-at-any-price, Peace-at-any-price, Safety-first Instead Of Duty-first, The Love Of Soft Living And The Get-rich-quick Theory Of Life.

Americanism Is A Question Of Principle, Of Idealism, Of Character. It Is Not A Matter Of Birthplace, Or Creed, Or Line Of Descent.

There Is No Moral Difference Between Gambling At Cards Or In Lotteries Or On The Race Track And Gambling In The Stock Market. One Method Is Just Pernicious To The Body Politic As The Other Kind.

No Educated Man Can Afford To Be Ignorant Of The Bible.

Politeness [is] A Sign Of Dignity, Not Subservience.

There Is Not A Man Of Us Who Does Not At Times Need A Helping Hand To Be Stretched Out To Him, And Then Shame Upon Him Who Will Not Stretch Out The Helping Hand To His Brother.

The Credit Belongs To The Man Who Is Actually In The Arena; Whose Face Is Marred With Dust And Sweat; Who Strives Valiantly; Who Errs And May Fall Again And Again, Because There Is No Effort Without Error Or Shortcoming.

The Chase Is Among The Best Of All National Pastimes; It Cultivates That Vigorous Manliness For The Lack Of Which In A Nation, As In An Individual, The Possession Of No Other Qualities Can Possibly Atone.

Much Of The Discussion About Socialism And Individualism Is Entirely Pointless, Because Of Failure To Agree On Terminology.

Massive Potential You Have And, In Recognition Of All This, Would You Mind Having Your Salary Halved.

Our Duty To The Whole, Including The Unborn Generations, Bids Us To Restrain An Unprincipled Present-day Minority From Wasting The Heritage Of These Unborn Generations. The Movement For The Conservation Of Wildlife And The Larger Movement For The Conservation Of All Our Natural Resources Are Essentially Democratic In Spirit, Purpose, And Method.

No Man Is Above The Law And No Man Is Below It: Nor Do We Ask Any Man's Permission When We Ask Him To Obey It.

Asking Permission

A President Has A Great Chance; His Position Is Almost That Of A King And A Prime Minister Rolled Into One.

My Position As Regards The Monied Interests Can Be Put In A Few Words. In Every Civilized Society Property Rights Must Be Carefully Safeguarded; Ordinarily And In The Great Majority Of Cases, Human Rights And Property Rights Are Fundamentally And In The Long Run, Identical; But When It Clearly Appears That There Is A Real Conflict Between Them, Human Rights Must Have The Upper Hand; For Property Belongs To Man And Not Man To Property.

The Performance Of Duty, And Not An Indulgence In Vapid Ease And Vapid Pleasure, Is All That Makes Life Worth While.

Great Corporations Exist Only Because They Are Created And Safeguarded By Our Institutions; And It Is Therefore Our Right And Duty To See That They Work In Harmony With These Institutions.

Rhetoric Is A Poor Substitute For Action.

While President, I Have Been President - Emphatically.

I Wish To Preach Not The Doctrine Of Ignoble Ease But The Doctrine Of The Strenuous Life; The Life Of Toil And Effort; Of Labour And Strife; To Preach That Highest Form Of Success Which Comes Not To The Man Who Desires Mere Easy Peace But To The Man Who Does Not Shrink From Danger, From Hardship, Or From Bitter Toil, And Who Out Of These Wins The Splendid Ultimate Triumph. A Life Of Ignoble Ease, A Life Of That Peace Which Springs Merely From Lack Either Of Desire Or Of Power To Strive After Great Things, Is As Little Worthy Of A Nation As Of An Individual.

Unjust War Is To Be Abhorred; But Woe To The Nation That Does Not Make Ready To Hold Its Own In Time Of Need Against All Who Would Harm It! And Woe Thrice Over To The Nation In Which The Average Man Loses The Fighting Edge, Loses The Power To Serve As A Soldier If The Day Of Need Should Arise!

Believe You Can Do It And You Are Halfway There

In This Country We Have No Place For Hyphenated Americans.

I Wish Very Much That The Wrong People Could Be Prevented Entirely From Breeding

Alike For The Nation And The Individual, The One Indispensable Requisite Is Character.

There Are Many Occasions When The Highest Praise One Can Receive Is The Attack Of Some Given Scoundrel.

If We Would Have Our Citizens Contented And Law-abiding, We Must Not Sow The Seeds Of Discontent In Childhood By Denying Children Their Birthright Of Play.

In The Long Run, The Most Unpleasant Truth Is A Safer Companion Than A Pleasant Falsehood.

I Think There Is Only One Quality Worse Than Hardness Of Heart And That Is Softness Of Head.

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.

The Great Man Is Always The Man Of Mighty Effort.

From Time To Time, Little Men Will Find Fault With What You Have Done...but They Will Go Down The Stream Like Bubbles, They Will Vanish. But The Work You Have Done Will Remain For The Ages.

The Reason Fat Men Are Good Natured Is They Can Neither Fight Nor Run.

In Other Words, Character Is Far More Important Than Intellect To The Race As To The Individual. We Need Intellect, And There Is No Reason Why We Should Not Have It Together With Character; But If We Must Choose Between The Two We Choose Character Without A Moment's Hesitation.

The Truth Is That Any Good Modern Rifle Is Good Enough. The Determining Factor Is The Man Behind The Gun.

I Never Keep Boys Waiting. It's A Hard Trial For A Boy To Wait.

It Was A Pleasure To Deal With A Man Of High Ideals, Who Scorned Everything Mean And Base, And Who Possessed Those Robust And Hardy Qualities Of Body And Mind, For The Lack Of Which No Merely Negative Virtue Can Ever Atone.

To Educate A Man In Mind And Not In Morals Is To Educate A Menace To Society.

The Important Thing Is This: That, Under Such Government Recognition As We May Give To That Which Is Beneficent And Wholesome In Large Business Organizations, We Shall Be Most Vigilant Never To Allow Them To Crystallize Into A Condition Which Shall Make Private Initiative Difficult. It Is Of The Utmost Importance That In The Future We Shall Keep The Broad Path Of Opportunity Just As Open And Easy For Our Children As It Was For Our Fathers During The Period Which Has Been The Glory Of America's Industrial History.

So That His Place Shall Never Be With Those Cold And Timid Souls Who Knew Neither Victory Nor Defeat.

Abraham Lincoln - The Spirit Incarnate Of Those Who Won Victory In The Civil War - Was The True Representative Of This People, Not Only For His Own Generation, But For All Time, Because He Was A Man Among Men.

The Government Is Us; We Are The Government, You And I."- Theodore Roosevelt

Yes, My Friend, And If You Will Steal For Me Then You Will Steal From Me.

Compromise" Is So Often Used In A Bad Sense That It Is Difficult To Remember That Properly It Merely Describes The Process Of Reaching An Agreement. Naturally There Are Certain Subjects On Which No Man Can Compromise. For Instance, There Must Be No Compromise Under Any Circumstances With Official Corruption, And Of Course No Man Should Hesitate To Say As Much.

There Is But One Answer To Terrorism And It Is Best Delivered With A Winchester Rifle.

Poverty Is A Bitter Thing; But It Is Not As Bitter As The Existence Of Restless Vacuity And Physical, Moral, And Intellectual Flabbiness, To Which Those Doom Themselves Who Elect To Spend All Their Years In That Vainest Of All Vain Pursuits-the Pursuit Of Mere Pleasure As A Sufficient End In Itself.

I Believe That There Should Be A Very Much Heavier Progressive Tax On Very Large Incomes, A Tax Which Should Increase In A Very Marked Fashion For The Gigantic Incomes.

We Must Diligently Strive To Make Our Young Men Decent, God-fearing, Law-abiding, Honor-loving, Justice-doing And Also Fearless And Strong.

Aggressive Fighting For The Right Is The Noblest Sport The World Affords.

Property Belongs To Man And Not Man To Property.

It Is Essential That There Should Be Organization Of Labor. This Is An Era Of Organization. Capital Organizes And Therefore Labor Must Organize.

There Are Some Timid Souls That Will Never Know Victory Nor Defeat.

The Man Who Does Not Think It Was America's Duty To Fight For Her Own Sake In View Of The Infamous Conduct Of Germany Toward Us Stands On A Level With A Man Who Wouldn't Think It Necessary To Fight In A Private Quarrel Because His Wife's Face Was Slapped.

The Armenian Massacre Was The Greatest Crime Of The War.

We Of An Older Generation Can Get Along With What We Have, Though With Growing Hardship; But In Your Full Manhood And Womanhood You Will Want What Nature Once So Bountifully Supplied And Man So Thoughtlessly Destroyed; And Because Of That Want You Will Reproach Us, Not For What We Have Used, But For What We Have Wasted...so Any Nation Which In Its Youth Lives Only For The Day, Reaps Without Sowing, And Consumes Without Husbanding, Must Expect The Penalty Of The Prodigal Whose Labor Could With Difficulty Find Him The Bare Means Of Life.

The Best Lesson That Any People Can Learn Is That There Is No Patent Cure-all Which Will Make The Body Politic Perfect, And That Any Man Who Is Able Glibly To Answer Every Question As To How To Deal With The Evils Of The Body Politic Is At Best A Foolish Visionary And At Worst An Evil-minded Quack.

Of All The Officers Of The Government, Those Of The Department Of Justice Should Be Kept Most Free From Any Suspicion Of Improper Action On Partisan Or Factional Grounds, So That There Shall Be Gradually A Growth, Even Though A Slow Growth, In The Knowledge That The Federal Courts And The Representatives Of The Federal Department Of Justice Insist On Meting Out Even-handed Justice To All.

We Stand For A Living Wage. Wages Are Subnormal If They Fail To Provide A Living For Those Who Devote Their Time And Energy To Industrial Occupations. The Monetary Equivalent Of A Living Wage Varies According To Local Conditions, But Must Include Enough To Secure The Elements Of A Normal Standard Of Living-a Standard High Enough To Make Morality Possible, To Provide For Education And Recreation, To Care For Immature Members Of The Family, To Maintain The Family During Periods Of Sickness, And To Permit Of Reasonable Saving For Old Age.

There Are No Words That Can Tell The Hidden Spirit Of The Wilderness, That Can Reveal Its Mystery, Its Melancholy And Its Charm.

There Can Be No Fifty-fifty Americanism In This Country. There Is Room Here For Only 100% Americanism, Only For Those Who Are Americans And Nothing Else

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 Man's Becoming In Very Fact An American, And Nothing But An American.

The Fool Who Has Not Sense To Discriminate Between What Is Good And What Is Bad Is Well Nigh As Dangerous As The Man Who Does Discriminate And Yet Chooses The Bad.

Profanity Is The Parlance Of The Fool. Why Curse When There Is Such A Magnificent Language With Which To Discourse?

If A Man Has A Very Decided Character, Has A Strongly Accentuated Career, It Is Normally The Case Of Course That He Makes Ardent Friends And Bitter Enemies.

The Dull, Purblind Folly Of The Very Rich Men, Their Greed And Arrogance, And The Corruption In Business And Politics, Have Tended To Produce A Very Unhealthy Condition.

If Elected, I Shall See To It That Every Man Has A Square Deal, No Less And No More.

I Wish To Say Seriously To All The Daily Newspapers, To The Republicans, The Democrat, And Socialist Parties, That They Cannot, Month In Month Out And Year In And Year Out, Make The Kind Of Untruthful, Of Bitter Assault That They Have Made And Not Expect That Brutal, Violent Natures, Or Brutal And Violent Characters, Especially When The Brutality Is Accompanied By A Not Very Strong Mind; They Cannot Expect That Such Natures Will Be Unaffected By It.

A Typical Vice Of American Politics Is The Avoidance Of Saying Anything Real On Real Issues.

With Great Victory Comes Great Sacrifice.

To Permit Every Lawless Capitalist, Every Law-defying Corporation, To Take Any Action, No Matter How Iniquitous, In The Effort To Secure An Improper Profit And To Build Up Privilege, Would Be Ruinous To The Republic And Would Mark The Abandonment Of The Effort To Secure In The Industrial World The Spirit Of Democratic Fair Dealing.

The Mass Of The American People Are Most Emphatically Not In The Deplorable Condition Of Which You Speak.

It Is Always Better To Be An Original Than An Imitation.

Over-sentimentality, Over-softness, In Fact Washiness And Mushiness Are The Great Dangers Of This Age And Of This People. Unless We Keep The Barbarian Virtues, Gaining The Civilized Ones Will Be Of Little Avail.

Rough Board Shelves Hold A Number Of Books, Without Which Some Of The Evenings Would Be Long Indeed.

The Old Parties Are Husks, With No Real Soul Within Either, Divided On Artificial Lines, Boss-ridden And Privilege-controlled, Each A Jumble Of Incongruous Elements, And Neither Daring To Speak Out Wisely And Fearlessly On What Should Be Said On The Vital Issues Of The Day.

We Have Room In This Country For But One Flag, The Stars And Stripes!

Certain Rich Men, Whose Lives Are Evil And Corrupt, Are The Representatives Of Predatory Wealth Accumulated By All Forms Of Inequity, From The Oppression Of Wage Workers To Unfair Methods Of Crushing Out Competition.

Patriotism Means To Stand By The Country. It Does Not Mean To Stand By The President Or Any Other Public Official, Save Exactly To The Degree In Which He Himself Stands By The Country. It Is Patriotic To Support Him Insofar As He Efficiently Serves The Country. It Is Unpatriotic Not To Oppose Him To The Exact Extent That By Inefficiency Or Otherwise He Fails In His Duty To Stand By The Country. In Either Event, It Is Unpatriotic Not To Tell The Truth, Whether About The President Or Anyone Else.

Nine Tenths Of Wisdom Consists In Being Wise In Time.

This Broken Country Extends Back From The River For Many Miles And Has Been Called Always Be Indian, French Voyager And American Trappers Alike, The Bad Lands.

I Do. That Is Character!

There Is Quite Enough Sorrow And Shame And Suffering And Baseness In Real Life, And There Is No Need For Meeting It Unnecessarily In Fiction.

It Is Both Foolish And Wicked To Teach The Average Man Who Is Not Well Off That Some Wrong Or Injustice Has Been Done Him, And That He Should Hope For Redress Elsewhere Than In His Own Industry, Honesty, And Intelligence.

The Teachings Of The Bible Are So Interwoven And Entwined With Our Whole Civic And Social Life That It Would Be Literally Impossible For Us To Figure To Ourselves What That Life Would Be If These Teachings Were Removed.

It Tires Me To Talk To Rich Men. You Expect A Man Of Millions, The Head Of A Great Industry, To Be A Man Worthhearing; But As A Rule They Don't Know Anything Outside Their Own Business.

The Lives Of Truest Heroism Are Those In Which There Are No Great Deeds To Look Back Upon. It Is The Little Things Well Done That Go To Make Up A Truly Successful And Good Life.

There Are Those Who Believe That A New Modernity Demands A New Morality. What They Fail To Consider Is The Harsh Reality That There Is No Such Thing As A New Morality. There Is Only One Morality . All Else Is Immorality.

A Healthy-minded Boy Should Feel Hearty Contempt For The Coward And Even More Hearty Indignation For The Boy Who Bullies Girls Or Small Boys, Or Tortures Animals.

There Can Be No Greater Issue Than That Of Conservation In This Country.

Every Man, Who Parrots The Cry Of ‘stand By The President’ Without Adding The Proviso ‘so Far As He Serves The Republic’ Takes An Attitude As Essentially Unmanly As That Of Any Stuart Royalist Who Championed The Doctrine That The King Could Do No Wrong. No Self-respecting And Intelligent Free Man Could Take Such An Attitude.

A Vote Is Like A Rifle; Its Usefulness Depends Upon The Character Of The User.

It Is Only The Warlike Power Of A Civilized People That Can Give Peace To The World.

The Liar Is No Whit Better Than The Thief, And If His Mendacity Takes The Form Of Slander He May Be Worse Than Most Thieves. It Puts A Premium Upon Knavery Untruthfully To Attack An Honest Man, Or Even With Hysterical Exaggeration To Assail A Bad Man With Untruth.

What I Am To Be, I Am Becoming.

There Are Rainy Days In Autumn And Stormy Days In Winter When The Rocking Chair In Front Of The Fire Simply Demands An Accompanying Book.

A Man Who Is Good Enough To Shed His Blood For The Country Is Good Enough To Be Given A Square Deal Afterwards.

I Highly Venerate The Masonic Institution, Under The Fullest Persuasion That, When Its Principles Are Acknowledged And Its Laws And Precepts Obeyed, It Comes Nearest To The Christian Religion, In Its Moral Effects And Influence, Of Any Institution With Which I Am Acquainted.

We Stand At Armageddon And We Battle For The Lord.

The Immigrant Must Not Be Allowed To Drift Or To Be Put At The Mercy Of The Exploiter. Our Object Is Not To Imitate One Of The Older Racial Types, But To Maintain A New American Type And Then To Secure Loyalty To This Type. We Cannot Secure Such Loyalty Unless We Make This A Country Where Men Shall Feel That They Have Justice And Also Where They Shall Feel That They Are Required To Perform The Duties Imposed Upon Them.

What 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.

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.

I Was A Reasonably Good Student In College ... My Chief Interests Were Scientific. When I Entered College, I Was Devoted To Out-of-doors Natural History, And My Ambition Was To Be A Scientific Man Of The Audubon, Or Wilson, Or Baird, Or Coues Type-a Man Like Hart Merriam, Or Frank Chapman, Or Hornaday, To-day.

Freedom Means The Supremacy Of Human Rights Everywhere.

The Poorest Way To Face Life Is To Face It With A Sneer.

We [must] Hold The Just Balance And Set Ourselves As Resolutely Against Improper Corporate Influence On The One Hand As Against Demagogy And Mob Rule On The Other.

The Corporation That Shrinks From The Light" Would Have Anything To Fear From Government. About The Welfare Of Such Corporations We Need Not Be Oversensitive.

Freedom Is Not A Gift Which Can Be Enjoyed Save By Those Shown Themselves Worthy Of It.

If Given The Choice Between Righteousness And Peace, I Choose Righteousness.

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.

No Great Intellectual Thing Was Ever Done By Great Effort.

No Man Can Be A Good Citizen Unless He Has A Wage More Than Sufficient To Cover The Bare Cost Of Living, And Hours Of Labor Short Enough So After His Day's Work Is Done He Will Have Time And Energy To Bear His Share In The Management Of The Community, To Help In Carrying The General Load.

The Establishment Of The National Park Service Is Justified By Considerations Of Good Administration, Of The Value Of Natural Beauty As A National Asset, And Of The Effectiveness Of Outdoor Life And Recreation In The Production Of Good Citizenship.

It Is Of Far More Important That A Man Shall Play Something Himself, Even If He Plays It Badly, Than That He Shall Go With Hundreds Of Companions To See Someone Else Play Well.

The True Friend Of Property, The True Conservative, Is He Who Insists That Property Shall Be The Servant And Not The Master Of The Commonwealth; Who Insists That The Creature Of Man’s Making Shall Be The Servant And Not The Master Of The Man Who Made It. The Citizens Of The United States Must Effectively Control The Mighty Commercial Forces Which They Have Called Into Being. There Can Be No Effective Control Of Corporations While Their Political Activity Remains. To Put An End To It Will Be Neither A Short Nor An Easy Task, But It Can Be Done.

Every Man Among Us Is More Fit To Meet The Duties And Responsibilities Of Citizenship Because Of The Perils Over Which, In The Past, The Nation Has Triumphed; Because Of The Blood And Sweat And Tears, The Labor And The Anguish, Through Which, In The Days That Have Gone, Our Forefathers Moved On To Triumph.

I Am A Man Who Believes With All Fervor And Intensity In Moderate Progress. Too Often Men Who Believe In Moderation Believe In It Only Moderately And Tepidly And Leave Fervor To The Extremists Of The Two Sides - The Extremists Of Reaction And The Extremists Of Progress. Washington, Lincoln . . . Are Men Who, To My Mind, Stand As The Types Of What Wide, Progressive Leadership Should Be.

Cowardice In A Race, As In An Individual, Is The Unpardonable Sin.

Society Has No Business To Permit Degenerates To Reproduce Their Kind

There Are Good Men And Bad Men Of All Nationalities, Creeds And Colors; And If This World Of Ours Is Ever To Become What We Hope Some Day It May Become, It Must Be By The General Recognition That The Man's Heart And Soul, The Man's Worth And Actions, Determine His Standing.

Work Hard At Work Worth Doing.

The Man Who Holds That Every Human Right Is Secondary To His Profit Must Now Give Way To The Advocate Of Human Welfare.

We Want The Active And Zealous Help Of Every Man Far-sighted Enough To Realize The Importance From The Standpoint Of The Nation's Welfare In The Future Of Preserving The Forests.

People Ask The Difference Between A Leader And A Boss. The Leader Leads, And The Boss Drives.

Whatever It Is, Handle It So That Your Children's Children Will Get The Benefit Of It.

Much Has Been Given Us, And Much Will Rightfully Be Expected From Us. We Have Duties To Others And Duties To Ourselves; And We Can Shirk Neither. We Have Become A Great Nation, Forced By The Fact Of Its Greatness Into Relations With Other Nations Of The Earth, And We Must Behave As Beseems A People With Such Responsibilities.

The Extermination Of The Buffalo Has Been A Veritable Tragedy Of The Animal World.

A Finer Body Of Men Has Never Been Gathered By Any Nation Than The Men Who Have Done The Work Of Building The Panama Canal; The Conditions Under Which They Have Lived And Have Done Their Work Have Been Better Than In Any Similar Work Ever Undertaken In The Tropics; They Have All Felt An Eager Pride In Their Work; And They Have Made Not Only America But The Whole World Their Debtors By What They Have Accomplished.

We Cannot Afford Merely To Sit Down And Deplore The Evils Of City Life As Inevitable, When Cities Are Constantly Growing, Both Absolutely And Relatively. We Must Set Ourselves Vigorously About The Task Of Improving Them; And This Task Is Now Well Begun.

There Is Something To Be Said For Government By A Great Aristocracy Which Has Furnished Leaders To The Nation In Peace And War For Generations; Even A Democrat Like Myself Must Admit This. But There Is Absolutely Nothing To Be Said For Government By A Plutocracy, For Government By Men Very Powerful In Certain Lines And Gifted With The Money Touch, But With Ideals Which In Their Essence Are Merely Those Of So Many Glorified Pawnbrokers.

Don't Hit At All If You Can Help It; Don't Hit A Man If You Can Possibly Avoid It; But If You Do Hit Him, Put Him To Sleep.

Show Me A Man Who Makes No Mistakes, And I Will Show You A Man Who Doesn't Do Things.

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.

If I Were A Factory Employee, A Workman On The Railroads Or A Wage-earner Of Any Sort, I Would Undoubtedly Join The Union Of My Trade. If I Disapproved Of Its Policy, I Would Join In Order To Fight That Policy; If The Union Leaders Were Dishonest, I Would Join In Order To Put Them Out. I Believe In The Union And I Believe That All Men Who Are Benefited By The Union Are Morally Bound To Help To The Extent Of Their Power In The Common Interests Advanced By The Union.

It Is Not The Critic Who Counts

The Credit Belongs To The Man Who Is Actually In The Arena..who Errs, Who Comes Short Again And Again; But Who Does Actually Strive To Do The Deeds; Who Spends Himself In A Worthy Cause.

Conservation Of Our Resources Is The Fundamental Question Before This Nation, And That Our First And Greatest Task Is To Set Our House In Order And Begin To Live Within Our Means.

And It Is Through Strife And The Readiness For Strife That A Man Or A Nation Must Win Greatness. So, Let The World Know That We Are Here And Willing To Pour Out Our Blood, Our Treasure, Our Tears. And That America Is Ready And If Need Be Desirous Of Battle

All For Each, And Each For All, Is A Good Motto; But Only On Condition That Each Works With Might And Main To So Maintain Himself As Not To Be A Burden To Others.

I Cannot Consent To Take The Position That The Door Of Hope - The Door Of Opportunity - Is To Be Shut Upon Any Man, No Matter How Worthy, Purely Upon The Grounds Of Race Or Color. Such An Attitude Would, According To My Convictions, Be Fundamentally Wrong.

The Reactionary Is Always Willing To Take A Progressive Attitude On Any Issue That Is Dead.

I Am An American; Free Born And Free Bred, Where I Acknowledge No Man As My Superior, Except For His Own Worth, Or As My Inferior, Except For His Own Demerit.

A Nation That Still Needs To Distinguish Between Stealing An Election, And Stealing A New Pair Of Shoes, Is Not Completely Civilized Yet.

When Great Nations Fear To Expand, Shrink From Expansion, It Is Because Their Greatness Is Coming To An End. Are We, Still In The Prime Of Our Lusty Youth, Still At The Beginning Of Our Glorious Manhood, To Sit Down Among The Outworn People, To Take Our Place With The Weak And The Craven? A Thousand Times No!

I Believe That The Officers, And, Especially, The Directors, Of Corporations Should Be Held Personally Responsible When Any Corporation Breaks The Law.

Gradually The True Mason Gains Experience In Using These Working Tools And Can Observe Subtler And Subtler Indications Of Personal Flaws.

Ours Is A Government Of Liberty By, Through, And Under The Law. A Great Democracy Must Be Progressive Or It Will Soon Cease To Be Great Or A Democracy.

It May Be That At Some Time In The Dim Future Of The Race The Need For War Will Vanish: But That Time Is Yet Ages Distant. As Yet No Nation Can Hold Its Place In The World, Or Can Do Any Work Really Worth Doing, Unless It Stands Ready To Guard Its Right With An Armed Hand.

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.

A Soft, Easy Life Is Not Worth Living, If It Impairs The Fibre Of Brain And Heart And Muscle. We Must Dare To Be Great; And We Must Realize That Greatness Is The Fruit Of Toil And Sacrifice And High Courage... For Us Is The Life Of Action, Of Strenuous Performance Of Duty; Let Us Live In The Harness, Striving Mightily; Let Us Rather Run The Risk Of Wearing Out Than Rusting Out.

The Joy In Life Is His Who Has The Heart To Demand It.

In Foreign Affairs We Must Make Up Our Minds That Whether We Wish It Or Not, We Are A Great People And Must Play A Great Part In The World. It Is Not Open To Us To Choose Whether We Will Play That Great Part Or Not.

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Lewis B. Smedes

Hjalmar Branting

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