Every man who is striving to do good public work is traveling along a ridge crest, with the gulf of failure on each side—the gulf of inefficiency on the one side, the gulf of unrighteousness on the other.
In "The Strenuous Life," this quote uses a vivid metaphor to describe the precarious balance public servants must maintain between inefficiency and unrighteousness.
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More from Teddy Roosevelt
One of the chief principles for which I have stood, and for which I now stand, and which I have always endeavored and always shall endeavor to reduce to action, is the genuine rule of the people.
I wish to say that the Progressive Party is making its appeal to all our fellow citizens without any regard to their creed or to their birthplace.
No man is worth his salt in public life who makes on the stump a pledge which he does not keep after election; and, if he makes such a pledge and does not keep it, hunt him out of public life.
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