Teddy Roosevelt

If he tries to model himself on some one else he will make a poor show of it.

Each man has got to carry out his own principles in his own way.

So far as in me lies I have tried and shall try so to handle myself that every decent American citizen can feel that I have at least made the effort.

No man is fit to hold the position of President of the United States at all unless as President he feels that he represents no party but the people as a whole.

I think I was a middling good American before I came here, but I go away an even better one.

It is our unity, not our divergency, that is the great fundamental fact of our national life.

You have made this great State of Texas what it is because your forefathers had in them the spirit which recognized in a difficulty something not to be flinched from, but to be overcome.

For a nation as for an individual the life is the life of effort.

I do not believe that we ought ever to try to delude ourselves with the thought that we can make life easy, effortless, and yet keep it worth having.

It is not a kindness to the children, it is a curse, if you train them so that they can not meet any need that arises.

Remember always that this life is certain to contain much that is hard, much that is unpleasant.

Do not forget that besides the training of the school must come the training in the family.

Keep it before yourselves ever that the very fact that you are proud of those who have gone before makes it incumbent upon you to leave a heritage of honor to those who are to come after you, and to train up those who are to come after you…

I want you men of Texas, you men of my age, to see to it that exactly as you lift your heads higher because of what your fathers have done, so your children have the right to hold their heads higher because of the way in which you handle…

The outward problem changes, the outward means of solving that problem changes, but the heart of the man who is to solve it can not be changed.

Nowadays men must fight with different weapons; men must fight with different tactics; but the spirit in which they must fight if they are to win must be the spirit that sustained you alike in triumph and defeat.

But the spirit in which those problems must be faced is forever the same.

All that we can decide is whether we shall play it well or ill; and I know too well, oh, my fellow-countrymen, not to know what your decision will be.

It is not open to us to choose whether we shall play a small part or a great part.

No people more than the Texans have rendered it impossible for this country to be anything but great.

You of this State of Texas have behind you a history containing the deeds of which not only you but all of the country must be forever proud.

We were the sons of the men who wore the blue, the sons of the men who wore the gray, and our only desire was to show ourselves not wholly unworthy of the mighty men of the years that are past.

Oh, my fellow-countrymen, think what a blessed thing it is that now every man in this land can feel the same pride in the valor and devotion of those who fought for one side and of those who fought for the other!

We are all going to go up, and not down, because we are going to go together.

For I think that we Americans have learned the lesson that whatever is good for some of us is good for all of us.