Teddy Roosevelt

I ask you to remember that you can not retain your self-respect if you are loose and foul of tongue, that a man who is to lead a clean and honorable life must inevitably suffer if his speech likewise is not clean and honorable.

I am addressing strong, vigorous men, who are engaged in the active hard work of life; and life to be worth living must be a life of activity and hard work.

We have good Scriptural authority for the statement that it is not what comes into a man’s mouth but what goes out of it that counts.

And one of the things dwelt upon in that sermon was the fact that a man must be clean of mouth as well as clean of life—must show by his words as well as by his actions his fealty to the Almighty if he was to be what we have a right to…

I am particularly glad to see such a society as this flourishing as your society has flourished, because the future welfare of our Nation depends upon the way in which we can combine in our men—in our young men—decency and strength.

He can make it in but one way; he can return what he owes to his alma mater only by making his alma mater proud of what he does in service rendered to his fellow-men.

A good American never owes anything that he does not seek to repay.

It is a good thing for the taste of a nation to have such an example of good taste ever before it.

It is a good thing for any nation to have as beautiful an institution of learning as is this University.

The University of Virginia has stood for much in our national life.

No more wonderful example of governmental ability, ability in statecraft and public administration, has ever been given than by the history of Virginia’s sons in public life.

No greater good can come to our people than to encourage in them a capacity for enjoyment which shall discriminate sharply between what is vicious and what is pleasant.

No greater contribution to American social life could possibly be made than by instilling into it the capacity for Gemüthlichkeit.

I wish that everywhere in our country we could see clubs and associations including all our citizens, similar in character to that Society which has furnished the reason for the assembling of this great audience to-night.

People have butchered one another under circumstances of dreadful atrocity, claiming all the time to be serving the object of the brotherhood of man or of the fatherhood of God.

No more hideous crimes have ever been committed by men than those that have been committed in the name of liberty, of order, of brotherhood, of religion.

One sad, one lamentable phase of human history is that the very loftiest words, implying the loftiest ideas, have often been used as cloaks for the commission of dreadful deeds of iniquity.

Another thing: let us so far as strength is given us make it evident to those who look on and who are not of us that our faith is not one of words merely; that it finds expression in deeds.

I trust that with the consecration of each new church of the Reformed creed in this our country there will be established a fresh centre of effort to get at and to help for their good the people that yearly come from over seas to us.

Now that we have established ourselves let us see to it that we stretch out the hand of help, the hand of brotherhood, toward the new-comers, and help them as speedily as possible to get into such relations that it will be easy for them to…

I feel that we should be peculiarly watchful over them, because of our own history, because we or our fathers came here under like conditions.

For that reason I always take a peculiar interest in the attitude of our churches toward the immigrants who come to these shores.

It was written of old that “by their fruits ye shall know them”; and we can show the faith that is in us, we can show the sincerity of our devotion, by the fruits we bring forth.

More than that no man is entitled to, and less than that no man shall have.

A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterward.