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The Longer I Live The More I Think Of The Quality Of Fortitude... Men Who Fall, Pick Themselves Up And Stumble On, Fall Again, And Are Trying To Get Back Up When They Die.

-Theodore Roosevelt

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The Longer I Live

Theodore Roosevelt

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The Longer I Live The More I Think Of The Quality Of Fortitude... Men Who Fall, Pick Themselves Up And Stumble On, Fall Again, And Are Trying To Get Back Up When They Die.

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Avoid The Base Hypocrisy Of Condemning In One Man What You Pass Over In Silence When Committed By Another.

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.

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.

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.

The One Quality Which Sets One Man Apart From Another- The Key Which Lifts One To Every Aspiration While Others Are Caught Up In The Mire Of Mediocrity- Is Not Talent, Formal Education, Nor Intellectual Brightness - It Is Self-discipline. With Self-discipline All Things Are Possible. Without It, Even The Simplest Goal Can Seem Like The Impossible Dream.

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.

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

There Is No Room In This Country For Hyphenated Americanism. When I Refer To Hyphenated Americans, I Do Not Refer To Naturalized Americans. Some Of The Very Best Americans I Have Ever Known Were Naturalized Americans, Americans Born Abroad. But A Hyphenated American Is Not An American At All.

The Foes From Whom We Pray To Be Delivered Are Our Own Passions, Appetites, And Follies; And Against These There Is Always Need That We Should War.

The Man Who Really Counts In The World Is The Doer, Not The Mere Critic -- The Man Who Actually Does The Work, Even If Roughly And Imperfectly, Not The Man Who Only Talks Or Writes About How It Ought To Be Done.

Death Is Always, Under All Circumstances, A Tragedy, For If It Is Not Then It Means That Life Has Become One.

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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.

Americans Learn Only From Catastrophe And Not From Experience.

No Man Should Receive A Dollar Unless That Dollar Has Been Fairly Earned.

Progressive Taxation

It Is Not The Critic Who Counts

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.

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.

I Hold It To Be Our Duty To See That The Wage-worker, The Small Producer, The Ordinary Consumer, Shall Get Their Fair Share Of Business Prosperity. But It Either Is Or Ought To Be Evident To Everyone That Business Has To Prosper Before Anybody Can Get Any Benefit From It.

Life Is A Great Adventure…accept It In Such A Spirit.

There Is A Homely Old Adage Which Runs: "speak Softly And Carry A Big Stick; You Will Go Far." If The American Nation Will Speak Softly, And Yet Build And Keep At A Pitch Of The Highest Training A Thoroughly Efficient Navy, The Monroe Doctrine Will Go Far.

The Wild Life Of Today Is Not Ours To Do With As We Please. The Original Stock Was Given To Us In Trust For The Benefit Both Of The Present And The Future. We Must Render An Accounting Of This Trust To Those Who Come After Us.

Malefactors Of Great Wealth Have Arrogantly Ignored The Public Welfare.

To Sit Home, Read One's Favorite Paper, And Scoff At The Misdeeds Of The Men Who Do Things Is Easy, But It Is Markedly Ineffective. It Is What Evil Men Count Upon The Good Men's Doing.

'liar' Is Just As Ugly A Word As 'thief,' Because It Implies The Presence Of Just As Ugly A Sin In One Case As In The Other. If A Man Lies Under Oath Or Procures The Lie Of Another Under Oath, If He Perjures Himself Or Suborns Perjury, He Is Guilty Under The Statute Law.

Rarely Has Any People Enjoyed Greater Prosperity Than We Are Now Enjoying. For This We Render Heartfelt And Solemn Thanks To The Giver Of Good; And We Seek To Praise Him -not By Words Only -but By Deeds, By The Way In Which We Do Our Duty To Ourselves And To Our Fellow Men.

The Eighth Commandment Reads, "thou Shalt Not Steal." It Does Not Read, "thou Shalt Not Steal From The Rich Man." It Does Not Read, "thou Shalt Not Steal From The Poor Man." It Reads Simply And Plainly, "thou Shalt Not Steal."

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.

It Is Not The Critic Who Counts...the Credit Belongs To The Man Who Is Actually In The Arena.

Every Special Interest Is Entitled To Justice - Full, Fair, And Complete... But Not One Is Entitled To A Vote In Congress, To A Voice On The Bench, Or To Representation In Any Public Office.

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.

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

Never Trust A Man Who Says He Is Only A Little Crooked, And That The Crookedness Is Exercised In Your Interest.

The Object Of Government Is The Welfare Of The People. The Material Progress And Prosperity Of A Nation Are Desirable Chiefly So Far As They Lead To The Moral And Material Welfare Of All Good Citizens.

Nine Tenths Of Wisdom Consists In Being Wise In Time.

When We Control Business In The Public Interest We Are Also Bound To Encourage It In The Public Interest Or It Will Be A Bad Thing For Everybody And Worst Of All For Those On Whose Behalf The Control Is Nominally Exercised.

Almost Every Man Who Has By His Life-work Added To The Sum Of Human Achievement Of Which The Race Is Proud, Of Which Our People Are Proud, Almost Every Such Man Has Based His Life-work Largely Upon The Teachings Of The Bible

All That The Law Can Do Is To Shape Things So That No Injustice Shall Be Done By One To The Other, And That Each Man Shall Be Given The First Chance To Show The Stuff That Is In Him.

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.

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.

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

We Want Men Who Will Fix Their Eyes On The Stars, But Who Will Not Forget That Their Feet Must Walk On The Ground.

To Announce That There Must Be No Criticism Of The President, Or That We Are To Stand By The President, Right Or Wrong, Is Not Only Unpatriotic And Servile, But Is Morally Treasonable To The American Public. Nothing But The Truth Should Be Spoken About Him Or Any One Else. But It Is Even More Important To Tell The Truth, Pleasant Or Unpleasant, About Him Than About Any One Else.

Power Always Brings With It Responsibility.

If There Is One Thing For Which We Stand In This Country, It Is For Complete Religious Freedom, And It Is An Emphatic Negation Of This Right To Cross-examine A Man On His Religion Before Being Willing To Support Him For Office.

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.

I Believe In A Graduated Income Tax On Big Fortunes, And In . . . A Graduated Inheritance Tax On Big Fortunes, . . . Increasing Rapidly In Amount With The Size Of The Estate.

Progressive Taxation

Oh, If Only I Could Be President And Congress, Too, Just For Ten Minutes.

Such An Experiment Without Actual Conditions Of War To Support It Is A Foolish Waste Of Time. . . . I Once Saw A Man Kill A Lion With A 30-30 Caliber Rifle Under Certain Conditions, But That Doesn't Mean That A 30-30 Rifle Is A Lion Gun.

I Am Only An Average Man But, By George, I Work Harder At It Than The Average Man.

Freedom From Effort In The Present Merely Means That There Has Been Effort Stored Up In The Past.

By Acting As If I Was Not Afraid, I Gradually Ceased To Be Afraid.

There Is Apt To Be A Lunatic Fringe Among The Votaries Of Any Forward Movement.

Forward Movement

Believe You Can Do It And You Are Halfway There

We Face The Future With Our Past And Our Present As Guarantors Of Our Promises; And We Are Content To Stand Or To Fall By The Record Which We Have Made And Are Making.

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.

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 Armenian Massacre Was The Greatest Crime Of The War.

There Can Be No Divided Allegiance Here. Any Man Who Says He Is An American, But Something Else Also, Isn't An American At All. We Have Room For But One Flag, The American Flag...we Have Room For But One Language Here, And That Is The English Language...and We Have Room For But One Sole Loyalty And That Is A Loyalty To The American People.

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.

To Have Acted Otherwise ... Would Have Been The Betrayal Of The Interests Of The United States.

Kings And Such Are Just As Funny As Politicians.

Obedience Of The Law Is Demanded; Not Asked As A Favor.

I Don't Go So Far As To Think That The Only Good Indians Are Dead Indians, But I Believe Nine Out Of Ten Are, And I Shouldn't Like To Inquire Too Closely Into The Case Of The Tenth.

A Healthy State Can Exist Only When The Men And Women Who Make It Up Lead Clean, Vigorous, Healthy Lives; When The Children Are So Trained That They Shall Endeavor, Not To Shirk Difficulties, But To Overcome Them; Not To Seek Ease, But To Know How To Wrest Triumph From Toil And Risk.

A President Has A Great Chance; His Position Is Almost That Of A King And A Prime Minister Rolled Into One. Once He Has Left Office He Cannot Do Very Much; And He Is A Fool If He Fails To Realize It All And To Be Profoundly Thankful For Having Had The Great Chance.

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

No Man Can Lead A Public Career Really Worth Leading, No Man Can Act With Rugged Independence In Serious Crises, Nor Strike At Great Abuses, Nor Afford To Make Powerful And Unscrupulous Foes, If He Is Himself Vulnerable In His Private Character.

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

The Hardest Lessons To Learn Are Those That Are The Most Obvious.

Although Not A Very Old Man, I Have Yet Lived A Great Deal In My Life, And I Have Known Sorrow Too Bitter And Joy Too Keen To Allow Me To Become Either Cast Down Or Elated For More Than A Very Brief Period Over Any Success Or Defeat.

Freemasonry Teaches Not Merely Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence, Justice, Brotherly Love, Relief, And Truth, But Liberty, Equality, And Fraternity, And It Denounces Ignorance, Superstition, Bigotry, Lust Tyranny And Despotism.

After Nightfall The Face Of The Country Seems To Alter Marvelously, And The Clear Moonlight Only Intensifies The Change. The River Gleams Like Running Quicksilver, And The Moonbeams Play Over The Grassy Stretches Of The Plateaus...the Bad Lands Seem To Be Stranger And Wilder Than Ever, The Silvery Rays Turning The Country Into A Kind Of Grim Fairyland.

I Wish To See The Bible Study As Much A Matter Of Course In The Secular Colleges As In The Seminary.

Perhaps There Is No More Important Component Of Character Than Steadfast Resolution.

Short-sighted Men Who In Their Greed And Selfishness Will, If Permitted, Rob Our Country Of Half Its Charm By Their Reckless Extermination Of All Useful And Beautiful Wild Things.

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

Outstanding Leaders

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.

Big Jobs Usually Go To The Men Who Prove Their Ability To Outgrow Small Ones.

Speak Softly, I'm Getting My Massage.

Don't Spread Patriotism Too Thin.

The Wolf Is The Arch Type Of Ravin, The Beast Of Waste And Desolation.

Absence And Death Are The Same - Only That In Death There Is No Suffering.

World Suffering

There Is A Delight In The Hardy Life Of The Open. There Are No Words That Can Tell The Hidden Spirit Of The Wilderness, That Can Reveal Its Mystery, Its Melancholy And Its Charm. The Nation Behaves Well If It Treats The Natural Resources As Assets Which It Must Turn Over To The Next Generation Increased; And Not Impaired In Value. Conservation Means Development As Much As It Does Protection.

It's Not The Critic That Counts.

No Nation Deserves To Exist If It Permits Itself To Lose The Stern And Virile Virtues; And This Without Regard To Whether The Loss Is Due To The Growth Of A Heartless And All-absorbing Commercialism, To Prolonged Indulgence In Luxury And Soft, Effortless Ease, Or To The Deification Of A Warped And Twisted Sentimentality.

Love Of Peace Is Common Among Weak, Short-sighted, Timid, And Lazy Persons; And On The Other Hand Courage Is Found Among Many Men Of Evil Temper And Bad Character. Neither Quality Shall By Itself Avail. Justice Among The Nations Of Mankind, And The Uplifting Of Humanity, Can Be Brought About Only By Those Strong And Daring Men Who With Wisdom Love Peace, But Who Love Righteousness More Than Peace.

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.

Nothing Worth Having Was Ever Achieved Without Effort.

Fitness Motivational

From The Very Beginning Our People Have Markedly Combined Practical Capacity For Affairs With Power Of Devotion To An Ideal. The Lack Of Either Quality Would Have Rendered The Other Of Small Value.

Optimism Is A Good Characteristic, But If Carried To An Excess, It Becomes Foolishness. We Are Prone To Speak Of The Resources Of This Country As Inexhaustible; This Is Not So.

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.

Mother Went Off For Three Days To New York And Mame And Quentin Took Instant Advantage Of Her Absence To Fall Sick. Quentin's Sickness Was Surely Due To A Riot In Candy And Ice-cream With Chocolate Sauce.

The Party Belongs To The Millions Of The Rank And File. It Does Not Belong To The Handful Of Politicians Who Have Assumed Fraudulently To Upset The Will Of The Rank And File. The Action Of These Men Is In No Sense "regular," As They Claim It To Be.... Theft And Dishonesty Cannot Give And Never Shall Give A Title To Regularity.

The Beauty And Charm Of The Wilderness Are His For The Asking, For The Edges Of The Wilderness Lie Close Beside The Beaten Roads Of The Present Travel.

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.

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.

It Is A Bad Thing For A Nation To Raise And To Admire A False Standard Of Success; And There Can Be No Falser Standard Than That Set By The Deification Of Material Well-being In And For Itself.

The Civilized People Of Today Look Back With Horror At Their Medieval Ancestors Who Wantonly Destroyed Great Works Of Art Or Sat Slothfully By While They Destroyed. We Have Passed This Stage.... Here In The U.s. We Turn Our Rivers And Streams Into Sewers And Dumping Grounds, We Pollute The Air, We Destroy Our Forests And Exterminate Fishes, Birds And Mammals - Not To Speak Of Vulgarizing Charming Landscapes With Hideous Advertisements. But At Best It Looks As If Our People Were Awakening.

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.

It May Be True That He Travels Farthest Who Travels Alone, But The Goal Thus Reached Is Not Worth Reaching.

After The War, And Until The Day Of His Death, His Position On Almost Every Public Question Was Either Mischievous Or Ridiculous, And Usually Both.

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.

We Have Duties To Others, And Duties To Ourselves, And We Cannot Shirk Either.

If We Put Corrupt Men In Public Office And Sneeringly Acquiesce In Their Corruptions, Then We Are Wrong Ourselves.

It Is The People, And Not The Judges, Who Are Entitled To Say What Their Constitution Means, For The Constitution Is Theirs, It Belongs To Them And Not To Their Servants In Office—any Other Theory Is Incompatible With The Foundation Principles Of Our Government.

The 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.

I Have Always Said I Would Not Have Been President Had It Not Been For My Experience In North Dakota.

Death By Violence, Death By Cold, Death By Starvation - They Are The Normal Endings Of The Stately Creatures Of The Wilderness. The Sentimentalists Who Prattle About The Peaceful Life Of Nature Do Not Realize Its Utter Mercilessness.

While The Nation That Has Dared To Be Great, That Has Had The Will And The Power To Change The Destiny Of The Ages, In The End Must Die, Yet No Less Surely The Nation That Has Played The Part Of The Weakling Must Also Die; And Whereas The Nation That Has Done Nothing Leaves Nothing Behind It, The Nation That Has Done A Great Work Really Continues, Though In Changed Form, To Live Forevermore.

The Vice Of Envy Is Not Only A Dangerous, But A Mean Vice; For It Is Always A Confession Of Inferiority. It May Promote Conduct Which Will Be Fruitful Of Wrong To Others, And It Must Cause Misery To The Man Who Feels It.

Behind The Ostensible Government Sits Enthroned An Invisible Government Owing No Allegiance And Acknowledging No Responsibility To The People.

One Of Our Defects As A Nation Is A Tendency To Use What Have Been Called ''weasel Words.'' When A Weasel Sucks Eggs The Meat Is Sucked Out Of The Egg. If You Use A ''weasel Word'' After Another There Is Nothing Left Of The Other.

We Need The Iron Qualities That Go With True Manhood. We Need The Positive Virtues Of Resolution, Of Courage, Of Indomitable Will, Of Power To Do Without Shrinking The Rough Work That Must Always Be Done.

I Wish That All Americans Would Realize That American Politics Is World Politics.

I Hold That In This Country There Must Be Complete Severance Of Church And State; That Public Moneys Shall Not Be Used For The Purpose Of Advancing Any Particular Creed; And Therefore That The Public Schools Shall Be Nonsectarian And No Public Moneys Appropriated For Sectarian Schools.

On The Whole, We Think That The Greatest Victories Are Yet To Be Won, The Greatest Deeds Yet To Be Done, And That There Are Yet In Store For Our Peoples, And For The Causes That We Uphold, Grander Triumphs Than Have Ever Yet Been Scored. But Be This As It May, We Gladly Agree That The One Plain Duty Of Every Man Is To Face The Future As He Faces The Present, Regardless Of What It May Have In Store For Him, Turning Toward The Light As He Sees The Light, To Play His Part Manfully, As A Man Among Men.

Greatest Victory

With Great Victory Comes Great Sacrifice.

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.

To Announce That There Must Be No Criticism Of The President... Is Morally Treasonable To The American Public.

Freedom Of Speech

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.

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.

No People On Earth Have More Cause To Be Thankful Than Ours, And This Is Said Reverently, In No Spirit Of Boastfulness In Our Own Strength, But With The Gratitude To The Giver Of Good Who Has Blessed Us.

I'm As Strong As A Bull Moose And You Can Use Me To The Limit.

What I Am To Be, I Am Becoming.

My Hat's In The Ring. The Fight Is On And I'm Stripped To The Buff.

In The Grand Canyon, Arizona Has A Natural Wonder Which Is In Kind Absolutely Unparalleled Throughout The Rest Of The World.

Natural Wonders

I Care Not What Others Think Of What I Do, But I Care Very Much About What I Think Of What I Do! That Is Character!

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.

No, I'm Not A Good Shot, But I Shoot Often.

We Are The Heirs Of The Ages

One Of Our Defects As A Nation Is A Tendency To Use What Have Been Called "weasel Words."

Constructive Change Offers The Best Method For Avoiding Destructive Change.

Some Men Can Live Up To Their Loftiest Ideals Without Ever Going Higher Than A Basement.

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

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

These International Bankers And Rockefeller Standard Oil Interests Control The Majority Of Newspapers And The Columns Of These Papers To Club Into Submission Or Drive Out Of Public Office Officials Who Refuse To Do The Bidding Of The Powerful Corrupt Cliques Which Compose The Invisible Government.

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

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.

In The History Of Mankind Many Republics Have Risen, Have Flourished For A Less Or Greater Time, And Then Have Fallen Because Their Citizens Lost The Power Of Governing Themselves And Thereby Of Governing Their State; And In No Way Has This Loss Of Power Been So Often And So Clearly Shown As In The Tendency To Turn The Government Into A Government Primarily For The Benefit Of One Class Instead Of A Government For The Benefit Of The People As A Whole.

Perhaps The Most Incapable Executive That Ever Filled The Presidential Chair...it Would Be Difficult To Imagine A Man Less Fit To Guide The State With Honor And Safety Through The Stormy Times That Marked The Opening Of The Present Century.

Courtesy Is As Much A Mark Of A Gentleman As Courage.

Performance Should Be Made Square With Promise.

No Nation Can Be Really Great Unless It Is Great In Peace, In Industry, Integrity, Honesty. Skilled Intelligence In Civic Affairs And Industrial Enterprises Alike; The Special Ability Of The Artist, The Man Of Letters, The Man Of Science, And The Man Of Business; The Rigid Determination To Wrong No Man, And To Stand For Righteousness-all These Are Necessary In A Great Nation.

Comparison Is The Thief Of Joy.

In Any Moment Of Decision, The Best Thing You Can Do Is The Right Thing, The Next Best Thing Is The Wrong Thing, And The Worst Thing You Can Do Is Nothing.

I Do Not Care A Rap As To Who Gets Credit For The Work, Provided The Work Is Done.

Our Country, We Have Faith To Believe, Is Only At The Beginning Of Its Growth. Unless The Forests Of The United States Can Be Made Ready To Meet The Vast Demands Which This Growth Will Inevitably Bring, Commercial Disaster, That Means Disaster To The Whole Country, Is Inevitable.

Just As Lincoln Got Contradictory Advice From The Extremists Of Both Sides . . . So Now I Have To Guard Myself Against The Extremists Of Both Sides.

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

Envy Is As Evil A Thing As Arrogance.

Do Not Get Into A Fight If You Can Possibly Avoid It. If You Get In, See It Through. Don't Hit If It Is Honorably Possible To Avoid Hitting, But Never Hit Soft. 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.

Lincoln-sad, Patient, Kindly Lincoln, Who After Bearing Upon His Weary Shoulders For Four Years A Greater Burden Than That Borne By Any Other Man Of The Nineteenth Century Laid Down His Life For The People Whom Living He Had Served As Well-built Upon His Early Study Of The Bible.

The Worst Of All Fears Is The Fear Of Living

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

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 Wish To Control Big Business So As To Secure Among Other Things Good Wages For The Wage-workers And Reasonable Prices For The Consumers. Wherever In Any Business The Prosperity Of The Business Man Is Obtained By Lowering The Wages Of His Workmen And Charging An Excessive Price To The Consumers We Wish To Interfere And Stop Such Practices. We Will Not Submit To That Kind Of Prosperity Any More Than We Will Submit To Prosperity Obtained By Swindling Investors Or Getting Unfair Advantages Over Business Rivals.

From Reading Of The People I Admired - Ranging From The Soldiers Of Valley Forge And Morgan's Riflemen To My Southern Forefathers And Kinfolk - I Felt A Great Admiration For Men Who Were Fearless And Who Could Hold Their Own In The World. And I Had A Great Desire To Be Like Them.

Every Thinking Man, When He Thinks, Realizes That The Teachings Of The Bible Are So Interwoven And Intertwined With Our Whole Civic And Social Life That It Would Be Literally, I Do Not Mean Figuratively, But Literally Impossible For Us To Figure What The Loss Would Be If These Teachings Were Removed. We Would Lose All The Standards By Which We Now Judge Both Public And Private Morals; All The Standards Toward Which We, With More Or Less Resolution, Strive To Raise Ourselves.

In Life, As In Football, The Principle To Follow Is To Hit The Line Hard.

We Must Treat Each Man On His Worth And Merits As A Man. We Must See That Each Is Given A Square Deal, Because He Is Entitled To No More And Should Receive No Less.

Mckinley Shows All The Background Of A Chocolate Eclair.

It Is No Use To Preach To [children] If You Do Not Act Decently Yourself.

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.

Every Immigrant Who Comes Here Should Be Required Within Five Years To Learn English Or Leave The Country.

Water Is A Commodity Not By Any Means To Be Found Everywhere...when Found, It Is More Than Likely To Be Bad, Being Either From A Bitter Alkaline Pool, Or From A Hole In A Creek, So Muddy That It Can Only Be Called Liquid By Courtesy.

What Such A Man Needs Is Not Courage But Nerve Control, Cool Headedness. This He Can Get Only By Practice.

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.

The Worst Lesson That Can Be Taught To A Man Is To Rely Upon Others And To Whine Over His Sufferings

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.

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

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 Dreams Of Golden Glory In The Future Will Not Come True Unless, High Of Heart And Strong Of Hand, By Our Own Mighty Deeds We Make Them Come True.

You Cannot Create Prosperity By Law. Sustained Thrift, Industry, Application, Intelligence, Are The Only Things That Ever Do, Or Ever Will, Create Prosperity. But You Can Very Easily Destroy Prosperity By Law.

The Modern Naturalist Must Realize That In Some Of Its Branches His Profession, While More Than Ever A Science, Has Also Become An Art.

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

While President, I Have Been President - Emphatically.

A Typical Vice Of American Politics The Avoidance Of Saying Anything Real On Real Issues, And The Announcement Of Radical Policies With Much Sound And Fury, And At The Same Time With A Cautious Accompaniment Of Weasel Phrases Each Of Which Sucks The Meat Out Of The Preceding Statement.

Your Ability Needs Responsibility To Expose Its Possibilities. Do What You Can With What You Have Where You Are.

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

The Fortunes Amassed Through Corporate Organization Are Now So Large, And Vest Such Power In Those That Wield Them, As To Make It A Matter Of Necessity To Give To The Sovereign - That Is, To The Government, Which Represents The People As A Whole - Some Effective Power Of Supervision Over Their Corporate Use. In Order To Insure A Healthy Social And Industrial Life, Every Big Corporation Should Be Held Responsible By, And Be Accountable To, Some Sovereign Strong Enough To Control Its Conduct.

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.

Just As You Believe You May Have Already Halfway There

Just As Little Can We Afford To Follow The Doctrinaires Of An Impossible - And Incidentally Of A Highly Undesirable - Social Revolution Which, In Destroying Individual Rights - Including Property Rights - And The Family, Would Destroy The Two Chief Agents In The Advance Of Mankind, And The Two Chief Reasons Why Either The Advance Or The Preservation Of Mankind Is Worthwhile.

The Joy Of Living Is His Who Has The Heart To Demand It. Life Is A Great Adventure, And I Want To Say To You, Accept It In Such A Spirit.

There Is Nothing Brilliant Or Outstanding In My Record, Except Perhaps This One Thing. I Do The Things I Believe Ought To Be Done. And When I Make Up My Mind To Do A Thing, I Act.

Famous Inspirational

No Triumph Of Peace Is Quite So Great As The Supreme Triumphs Of War.

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

The Need For Collecting Large Campaign Funds Would Vanish If Congress Provided An Appropriation For The Proper And Legitimate Expenses Of Each Of The Great National Parties, An Appropriation Ample Enough To Meet The Necessity For Thorough Organization And Machinery, Which Requires A Large Expenditure Of Money. Then The Stipulation Should Be Made That No Party Receiving Campaign Funds From The Treasury Should Accept More Than A Fixed Amount From Any Individual Subscriber Or Donor; And The Necessary Publicity For Receipts And Expenditures Could Without Difficulty Be Provided.

Conservation Means Development As Much As It Does Protection. I Recognize The Right And Duty Of This Generation To Develop And Use The Natural Resources Of Our Land; But I Do Not Recognize The Right To Waste Them, Or To Rob, By Wasteful Use, The Generations That Come After Us.

The Words Of The Declaration Of Independence, As Given Effect By Washington...are To Be Accepted As Real, And Not As Empty Phrases...that In Very Truth This Is A Government By The People Themselves, That The Constitution Is Theirs, That The Courts Are Theirs, That All The Government Agents And Agencies Are Theirs... It Is For The People Themselves Finally To Decide All Questions Of Public Policy And To Have Their Decision Made Effective...we Here, In America, Hold In Our Hands The Hope Of The World.

The Decisions Of The Courts On Economic And Social Questions Depend On Their Economic And Social Philosophy.

Then Get Busy And Find Out How To Do It.

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Rattlesnakes Are Only Too Plentiful Everywhere; Along The River Bottoms, In The Broken, Hilly Ground, And On The Prairies And The Great Desert Wastes Alike...if It Can It Will Get Out Of The Way, And Only Coils Up In Its Attitude Of Defence When It Believes That It Is Actually Menaced.

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

If A Strong Man Has Not In Him The Lift Toward Lofty Things, His Strength Makes Him Only A Curse To Himself And His Neighbor.

I Stand For The Square Deal. I Mean Not Merely That I Stand For Fair Play Under The Present Rules Of The Game, But That I Stand For Having Those Rules Changed So As To Work For A More Substantial Equality Of Opportunity And Of Reward For Equally Good Service.

We Are Consuming Our Forests Three Times Faster Than They Are Being Reproduced. Some Of The Richest Timber Lands Of This Continent Have Already Been Destroyed, And Not Replaced, And Other Vast Areas Are On The Verge Of Destruction. Yet Forests, Unlike Mines, Can Be So Handled As To Yield The Best Results Of Use, Without Exhaustion, Just Like Grain Fields.

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

Conservation And Rural-life Policies Are Really Two Sides Of The Same Policy; And Down At The Bottom This Policy Rests Upon The Fundamental Law That Neither Man Nor Nation Can Prosper Unless, In Dealing With The Present, Thought Is Steadily Given For The Future.

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