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Quotes by President
"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness."
28
"Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it."
28
"I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also."
28
"The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office."
28
"When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat."
28
"Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us to restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wildlife and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method."
28
"Our country presents on every side the evidences of that continued favor under whose auspices it, has gradually risen from a few feeble and dependent colonies to a prosperous and powerful confederacy."
28
"Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances."
28
"Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better."
27
"Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty. No kind of life is worth leading if it is always an easy life. I know that your life is hard; I know that your work is hard; and hardest of all for those of you who have the highest trained consciences, and who therefore feel always how much you ought to do. I know your work is hard, and that is why I congratulate you with all my heart. I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well."
27
"As mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality."
27
"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed."
27
"Never send a battalion to take a hill if a regiment is available."
27
"I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind."
27
"No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort."
27
"Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom."
27
"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."
27
"There are no adequate substitutes for father, mother, and children bound together in a loving commitment to nurture and protect. No government, no matter how well-intentioned, can take the place of the family in the scheme of things."
27
"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."
27
"Human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected."
27
"No other people have a government more worthy of their respect and love or a land so magnificent in extent, so pleasant to look upon, and so full of generous suggestion to enterprise and labor."
27
"I have always done my duty. I am ready to die. My only regret is for the friends I leave behind me."
27
"Action not words are the true criterion of the attachment of friends."
27
"I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends, they're the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights!"
27
"Shot through the heart, and you're to blame! you give love, a bad name."
27
"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That's not leadership. That's not going to happen."
26
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
26
"If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name."
26
"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!"
26
"Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed."
26
"Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation."
26
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