F. D. Roosevelt Quotes

No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

The Diary of a Young Girl - This book fills you with sadness. I like this book

I was glad to hear that you were to be confirmed.

We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.

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

Remember you are just an extra in everyone else’s play.

And even when success comes, as I am sure it will, bear in mind that there are more quiet and enviable joys than to be among the most sought after women at a ball...

The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.

People are not prisoners of fate, but prisoners of their own minds.

Most of the men had simple souls. They could relate facts, but they said very little about what they dimly felt.

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.

The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve them inpractical fashion.

We have to make these young people (of the Depression) feel that they are necessary. (They should be given) "certain things for which youth craves – the chance for self-sacrifice for an ideal.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

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

You not only have a right to be an individual. You have a responsibility.

The habit of mobility had become ingrained.

She feared that she would become a slave to superficial, symbolic duties.

A man who will steal for me will steal from me." Theodore Roosevelt, dismissing on the spot one of his best cowhands who was about to claim for his boss an unmarked animal.

The President and the Congress are all very well in their way. They can say what they think they think, but it rests with the Supreme Court to decide what they have really thought.

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

Every book of tactics in the regiment was in use from morning until night, and the officers and non-commissioned officers were always studying the problems presented at the schools.

I read them (articles TR wrote on his honeymoon) all over to Edith and her corrections and help were most valuable to me.

If you want a world ruled by law and not by force you must build up, from the very grassroots, a respect for law.

One journalist complemented another that his article on a dispute, "had made both sides see themselves as they are.

I sometimes think that the saving grace of America lies in the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities- a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.

Some people can never understand that you have to wait, even for the best of things, until the right time comes.

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

To reach a port we must set sail –Sail, not tie at anchorSail, not drift.

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

...the majority in a democracy has no more right to tyrannize over a minority than, under a different system, the latter would to oppress the former.

Wall Street billionaires are predicting that Roosevelt-style railroad rate regulation will sooner or later bring about financial catastrophe. [ca. 1906]

Of Teddy Roosevelt and his siblings, the author writes they were, "armed with an innate curiosity and discipline fostered by his remarkable father.

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

Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.

The existence of any method, standard, custom or practice is no reason for its continuance when a better is offered.

Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground

I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.

She was never satisfied with anything less than perfection, but she was no grind. She was too interested in people.

The Yale graduate who had refused to read outside the course curriculum (the future Pres. Taft) suddenly found himself inspired.

If he (Teddy Roosevelt) lacked Will Taft's immediate charisma, gradually his classmates could not resist the spell of his highly original personality.

(Theodore) Roosevelt confessed early fascination with "girls'stories" such as Little Man and Little Women and An Old-Fashioned Girl.

...no one can afford not to be a man. No position can compensate for coming face to face with a robot when you are alone.

Edith (the future Mrs. Teddy Roosevelt) developed a lifelong devotion to drama and poetry. "I have gone back to Shakespeare, as I always do, " she would write seven decades later.

As ever, books remained a medium through which Theodore and Edith connected and interpreted larger world.

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.

One cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.

There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake.

It is often the people who refuse to assume any responsibility who are apt to be the sharpest critics of those who do.

According to his habit, Theodore Roosevelt sought to harness anxiety through action.