The people who trust to or exact promises that, if a certain political leader is followed or a certain public policy adopted, this great truth will cease to operate, are not merely leaning on a broken reed, but are working for their own undoing.
In an essay on the strenuous life, Roosevelt cautions against political promises that suggest fundamental principles of individual responsibility can be circumvented.
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I care for the great deeds of the past chiefly as spurs to drive us onward in the present.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles.
I deeply appreciate your letter, and I realize to the full the heavy responsibility it puts upon me.
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