Top 500 Theodore Roosevelt Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

202. “Free speech exercised both individually and through a free press, is a necessity in any country where people are themselves free.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

203. “It is of little use for us to pay lip-loyalty to the mighty men of the past unless we sincerely endeavor to apply to the problems of the present precisely the qualities which in other crises enabled the men of that day to meet those crises.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

204. “Your attitude about who you are and what you have is a very little thing that makes a very big difference.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

205. “Certain rich men, whose lives are evil and corrupt, are the representatives of predatory wealth accumulated by all forms of inequity, from the oppression of wage workers to unfair methods of crushing out competition.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

206. “I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

207. “We must diligently strive to make our young men decent, God-fearing, law-abiding, honor-loving, justice-doing and also fearless and strong.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

208. “Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

209. “While my interest in natural history has added very little to my sum of achievement, it has added immeasurably to my sum of enjoyment in life.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

210. “If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base and sordid creature, no matter how successful.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

211. “I never keep boys waiting. It’s a hard trial for a boy to wait.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

212. “The worst thing I can do is nothing.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

213. “The curse of every ancient civilization was that its men in the end became unable to fight. Materialism, luxury, safety, even sometimes an almost modern sentimentality, weakened the fibre of each civilized race in turn; each became in the end a nation of pacifists, and then each was trodden under foot by some ruder people that had kept that virile fighting power the lack of which makes all other virtues useless and sometimes even harmful.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

214. “I grew into manhood thoroughly imbued with the feeling that a man must be respected for what he made of himself.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

215. “It is a bad thing for a nation to raise and to admire a false standard of success; and there can be no falser standard than that set by the deification of material well-being in and for itself.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

216. “There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a Democrat like myself must admit this.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

217. “I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than vice president.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

218. “There is quite enough sorrow and shame and suffering and baseness in real life, and there is no need for meeting it unnecessarily in fiction.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

219. “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

220. “There is but one answer to terrorism and it is best delivered with a Winchester rifle.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

221. “The spirit of brotherhood recognizes of necessity both the need of self-help and also the need of helping others in the only way which every ultimately does great god, that is, of helping them to help themselves.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

222. “I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

223. “I do not believe there was ever a life more attractive than life on a cattle farm.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

224. “Avoid the base hypocrisy of condemning in one man what you pass over in silence when committed by another.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

225. “All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune-make for a finer, nobler type of manhood.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

226. “Argument weak; speak loudly!”

— Theodore Roosevelt

227. “The Constitution was made for the people and not the people for the Constitution.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

228. “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

229. “In a civilized and cultivated country, wild animals only continue to exist at all when preserved by sportsmen.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

230. “By acting as if I was not afraid, I gradually ceased to be afraid.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

231. “Optimism is a good characteristic, but if carried to an excess, it becomes foolishness. We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

232. “No educated man can afford to be ignorant of the Bible.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

233. “The biggest corporation, like the humblest private citizen, must be held to strict compliance with the will of the people as expressed in the fundamental law.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

234. “Yes, my friend, and if you will steal for me then you will steal from me.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

235. “Every child has inside him an aching void for excitement and if we don’t fill it with something which is exciting and interesting and good for him, he will fill it with something which is exciting and interesting and which isn’t good for him.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

236. “Americanism is a question of principle, of idealism, of character. It is not a matter of birthplace, or creed, or line of descent.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

237. “At sometime in our lives a devil dwells within us, causes heartbreaks, confusion and troubles, then dies.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

238. “Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

239. “Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far above is character.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

240. “Every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

241. “The lives of truest heroism are those in which there are no great deeds to look back upon. It is the little things well done that go to make up a truly successful and good life.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

242. “The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

243. “The nation should be ruled by the Ten Commandments.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

244. “There is apt to be a lunatic fringe among the votaries of any forward movement.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

245. “Weasel words from mollycoddles will never do when the day demands prophetic clarity from greathearts. Manly men must emerge for this hour of trial.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

246. “I keep my good health by having a very bad temper, kept under good control.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

247. “If a man has a very decided character, has a strongly accentuated career, it is normally the case of course that he makes ardent friends and bitter enemies.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

248. “There were all kinds of things I was afraid of at first, ranging from grizzly bears to ‘mean’ horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

249. “I have a perfect horror of words that are not backed up by deeds.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

250. “The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teaching were removed.”

— Theodore Roosevelt