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.
In an essay promoting a life of effort and purpose, this passage contrasts the hardship of poverty with the emptiness of a life devoted solely to pleasure.
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More from Teddy Roosevelt
Our country—this great Republic—means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular government, and, in the long run, of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show…
Therefore I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance, through direct primaries, to express their preference as to who shall be the nominee of the Republican Presidential Convention.
A broken promise is bad enough in private life. It is worse in the field of politics.
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