Teddy Roosevelt

In the army you developed two or three or half a dozen great geniuses.

We are all of us apt to get to talking and thinking of the nation and the state as abstractions.

Government by the majority in Congress had practically come to a stop when Mr. Reed became Speaker.

Our salvation now, as in the old days, lies in the practical applying of principles that, in theory, we admit to be the only principles according to which it is possible to administer this Republic.

That is how the victory comes.

We need other things, too; we have got to have a proper ideal of our lives; each man must do his duty by his neighbor.

He has got in the first place to be honest and decent.

Our honor at home, our honor in domestic and internal affairs, is at all times in our own keeping, and depends simply upon the possession of an awakened public conscience.

We have many external problems to solve, but our internal problems are, of course, more serious.

If we have not got in us the lift toward righteousness, the lift toward something better than material needs, prosperity will be a curse instead of a blessing.

It is impossible to devise anyone perfect solution, and one complete solution, for all the problems of our latter-day industrial civilization.

The Monroe Doctrine is simply a statement of our very firm belief that on this continent the nations now existing here must be left to work out their own destinies among themselves and that the continent is not longer to be regarded as…

We need good laws, good constitutions, and upright and honest administration of the laws.

Each Filipino now has a better chance for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness than he ever dreamed of having before—than he could have ever dreamed of acquiring under the rule of any little native oligarchy.

The good work of building up the navy must go on without ceasing.

We need the will to practice them.

You need those qualities in private life and you need them in public life.

We stand firmly on the Monroe Doctrine.

Never in their history has each man had, as he has now, such a good chance for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Every one of you who has seen or studied about a modern warship knows that it is a singularly delicate and complicated as well as a singularly formidable bit of mechanism.

We have got to do it somehow, and I ask that all men stand shoulder to shoulder as Americans to see that they do it well.

One secret, perhaps I might say the chief secret, of Mr. Blaine's extraordinary hold upon the affections of his countrymen was his entirely genuine and unaffected Americanism.

It is always pleasant to point to an example which we can follow rather than avoid.

Rifles now instead of bows then, but the man behind the rifle is more important than the rifle itself.

You have got to have a superstructure, too.