Teddy Roosevelt

The great growth in the love of athletic sports, for instance, while fraught with danger if it becomes one-sided and unhealthy, has beyond all question had an excellent effect in increased manliness.

There are always in life countless tendencies for good and for evil, and each succeeding generation sees some of these tendencies strengthened and some weakened; nor is it by any means always, alas! that the tendencies for evil are…

It is only on these conditions that he will grow into the kind of American man of whom America can be really proud.

He must be clean-minded and clean-lived, and able to hold his own under all circumstances and against all comers.

He must not be a coward or a weakling, a bully, a shirk, or a prig.

Now, the chances are strong that he won’t be much of a man unless he is a good deal of a boy.

The problems that confront us in this age are, after all, in their essence the same as those that have always confronted free peoples striving to secure and to keep free government.

He must promise, both to himself and to others, only what he can perform; but what really can be performed he must promise, and such promise he must at all hazards make good.

A man is worthless unless he has in him a lofty devotion to an ideal, and he is worthless also unless he strives to realize this ideal by practical methods.

Yet we can trust still less those base beings who treat politics only as a game out of which to wrong a soiled livelihood, and in whose vocabulary the word “practical” has come to be a synonym for whatever is mean and corrupt.

We can not trust the mere doctrinaire; we can not trust the mere closet reformer, nor yet his acrid brother who himself does nothing, but who rails at those who endure the heat and burden of the day.

Throughout the history of the world the nations who have done best in self-government are those who have demanded from their public men only the promise of what can actually be done for righteousness and honesty, and who have sternly…

The visionary or the self-seeking knave who promises the golden impossible, and the credulous dupe who is taken in by such a promise, and who in clutching at the impossible loses the chance of securing the real though lesser good, are as…

All great fundamental truths are apt to sound rather trite, and yet in spite of their triteness they need to be reiterated over and over again.

As a rule, and speaking with due regard to the exceptions, it should be taken as axiomatic that when a man in public life pledges himself to a certain course of action he shall as a matter of course do what he said he would do, and shall…

A man should no more be excused for lying on the stump than for lying off the stump.

It shows a thoroughly unhealthy state of mind when the public pardons with a laugh failure to keep a distinct pledge, on the ground that a politician can not be expected to confine himself to the truth when on the stump or the platform.

The other side is that no man should be held excusable if he does not perform what he promises, unless for the best and most sufficient reason.

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…

But the best scheme of government can do little more than provide against injustice, and then let the individual rise or fall on his own merits.

It is easy enough to devise a scheme of government which shall absolutely nullify all these qualities and ensure failure to everybody, whether he deserves success or not.

But ultimately the individual’s own faculties must form the chief factor in working out his own salvation.

Wise legislation and upright administration can undoubtedly work very great good to a community, and, above all, can give to each individual the chance to do the best work for himself.

People really fit for self-government will not be misled by over-effusiveness in promise, and, on the other hand, they will demand that every proper promise shall be made good.

It is a good thing to combine a warm heart with a cool head.