Theodore Roosevelt
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"Theodore "T.R." Roosevelt, Jr." was an American politician, author, naturalist, soldier, explorer, and historian who served as the List of Presidents of the United States/26th President of the United States. He was a leader of the History of the United States Republican Party/Republican Party (GOP) and founder of the Progressive Party (United States, 1912)/Progressive Party insurgency of 1912. He is known for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Era/Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity. Growing up, Roosevelt was a sickly child who suffered from asthma. To overcome his physical weakness, he embraced a strenuous life. He was home-schooled and became an eager student of nature. He attended Harvard University/Harvard College, where he studied biology, boxed, and developed an interest in naval affairs. He quickly entered politics, determined to become a member of the ruling class. In 1881, he was elected to the New York State Assembly, where he became a leader of the reform faction of the Republican Party (United States)/GOP. His book, The Naval War of 1812 (1882), established him as a learned historian and writer.

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When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president.

If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness.

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

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Any man who tries to excite class hatred, sectional hate, hate of creeds, any kind of hatred in our community, though he may affect to do it in the interest of the class he is addressing, is in the long run with absolute certainly that class's own worst enemy.

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.

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

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

With self-discipline most anything is possible.

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

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.

Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy.

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.

It's not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out how the doer of deeds might have done them better. Instead, the credit belongs to the man in the arena whose face is marred by sweat and blood and tears.

Spend and be spent.

Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'

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

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.

When I say I believe in a square deal i do not mean ... to give every man the best hand. If the cards do not come to any man, or if they do come, and he has not got the power to play them, that is his affair. All I mean is that there shall be no crookedness in the dealing.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, right or wrong - is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Far better 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 grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Put out the light.

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!

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft!

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Justice consists not in being neutral between right and wrong, but in finding out the right and upholding it, wherever found, against the wrong.

There is a homely old adage which runs: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.' If the American nation will speak softly, and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far.

Practical efficiency is common, and lofty idealism not uncommon; it is the combination which is necessary, and the combination is rare .

Do what you can with what you have where you are.

A just war is in the long run far better for a nation's soul than the most prosperous peace obtained by acquiescence in wrong or injustice.

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

The great virtue of my radicalism lies in the fact that I am perfectly ready, if necessary, to be radical on the conservative side.

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.

The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.

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