"The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name."

"In the long run, success or failure will beconditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average women, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation."

"The reader, the booklover, must meet his own needs without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs should be."

"Books are almost as individual as friends. There is no earthly use in laying down general laws about them. Some meet the needs of one person, and some of another; and each person should beware of the booklover's besetting sin, of what Mr. Edgar Allan Poe calls 'the mad pride of intellectuality,' taking the shape of arrogant pity for the man who does not like the same kind of books."

"Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country."

"You would be much amused with the animals round the ranch."

"Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor."

"It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws."

"Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us."

"Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance."

"I ended my statement to the colored soldiers by saying: "Now, I shall be very sorry to hurt you, and you don't know whether or not I will keep my word, but my men can tell you that I always do;" whereupon my cow-punchers, hunters, and miners solemnly nodded their heads and commented in chorus, exactly as if in a comic opera, "He always does; he always does!"

"That was a good mark in Latin, and I am pleased with your steady improvement in it."

"A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues."

"A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education."

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

"I can do one of two things. I can be President of the United States or I can control Alice Roosevelt. (His 19-year-old daughter.) I cannot possibly do both."

"Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another's keeping."

"In order to succeed we need leaders of inspired idealism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, who dream greatly and strive to make their dreams come true; who can kindle the people with the fire from their own burning souls. The leader for the time being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument, to be used until broken and then to be cast aside; and if he is worth his salt he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory may be won."

"To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."

"The leaders of thought and of action grope theirway forward to a new life, realizing, sometimes dimly, sometimes clear-sightedly,that the life of material gain, whether for a nation or an individual, is of valueonly as a foundation, only as there is added to it the uplift that comes fromdevotion to loftier ideals."

"I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!"

"No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience."

"The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife."

"It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things."

"To befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business & corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

"Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind."

"I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also."

"The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits."

"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

"No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned."

"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."

"I have only a second rate brain, but I think I have a capacity for action."

"No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse."

"We did everything possible to keep up the spirits of the men, but it was exceedingly difficult because there was nothing for them to do."

"It is never worth while to absolutely exhaust one's self or to take big chances unless for an adequate object."

"The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead."

"I am a strong individualist by personal habit, inheritance, and conviction; but it is a mere matter of common sense to recognize that the State, the community, the citizens acting together, can do a number of things better than if they were left to individual action."

"The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it."

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

"A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy."

"Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe."

"Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords."

"A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user."

"Although not a very old man, I have yet lived a great deal in my life, and I have known sorrow too bitter and joy too keen to allow me to become either cast down or elated for more than a very brief period over any success or defeat."

"We should not take part in acting a lie any more than in telling a lie. Weshould not say that men are equal where they are not equal, nor proceed uponthe assumption that there is an equality where it does not exist; but we shouldstrive to bring about a measurable equality, at least to the extent of preventingthe inequality which is due to force or fraud."

"The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people."

"Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground."

"The average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very muchhigher."

"Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past."