Jasper > Jasper's Quotes

“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.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, American Ideals: And Other Essays, Social and Political

“There is not one among us in whom a devil does not dwell; at some time, on some point, that devil masters each of us... It is not having been in the Dark House, but having left it, that counts.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“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

“It is no use to preach to children if you do not act decently yourself.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“There are two things that I want you to make up your minds to: first, that you are going to have a good time as long as you live – I have no use for the sour-faced man – and next, that you are going to do something worthwhile, that you are going to work hard and do the things you set out to do.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“No ability, no strength and force, no power of intellect or power of wealth, shall avail us, if we have not the root of right living in us.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Surely our people do not understand even yet the rich heritage that is theirs. There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children’s children forever, with their majesty all unmarred.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter

“Courage isn't the absence of fear, it's the choice that something else is greater than that fear.”
― Theadore Roosevelt

“Life means change; where there is no change, death comes.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far above both is character. It is true, of course, that a genius may, on certain lines, do more than a brave and manly fellow who is not a genius; and so, in sports, vast physical strength may overcome weakness, even though the puny body may have in it the heart of a lion. But, in the long run, in the great battle of life, no brilliancy of intellect, no perfection of bodily development, will count when weighed in the balance against that assemblage of virtues, active and passive, of moral qualities, which we group together under the name of character; and if between any two contestants, even in college sport or in college work, the difference in character on the right side is as great as the difference of intellect or strength the other way, it is the character side that will win.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“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.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“It is out of the question for our people to rise by treading down any of their own number.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“at the outset almost every man is frightened when he goes into action, but that the course to follow is for the man to keep such a grip on himself that he can act just as if he was not frightened. After this is kept up long enough it changes from pretense to reality, and the man does in very fact become fearless by sheer dint of practicing fearlessness when he does not feel it.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography

“It is never worth while to absolutely exhaust one's self or to take big chances unless for an adequate object.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, Letters to His Children

“Right here let me make as vigorous a plea as I know how in favor of saying nothing that we do not mean, and of acting without hesitation up to whatever we say. A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick -- you will go far.' If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power. In private life there are few beings more obnoxious than the man who is always loudly boasting; and if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words his position becomes absolutely contemptible. So it is with the nation. It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and, above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“I now believe as sincerely as ever, for all the laws that the wit of man can devise will never make a man a worthy citizen unless he has within himself the right stuff, unless he has self-reliance, energy, courage, the power of insisting on his own rights and the sympathy that makes him regardful of the rights of others.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography

“I have only a second rate brain, but I think I have a capacity for action.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“We must dare to be great; and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“I grew into manhood thoroughly imbued with the feeling that a man must be respected for what he made of himself.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography

“Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don't have the strength.”
― Teddy Roosevelt

“Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“90% of the work in this country is done
by people who don't feel good".”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“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.”
― Theodore Roosevelt, The Man In The Arena: Speeches and Essays by Theodore Roosevelt

“I put myself in the way of things happening, and they happened.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“The only man who never makes a mistake is the one one who never does anything.”
― Teddy Roosevelt