The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.
~ Theodore Roosevelt
A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.
There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.
People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.
Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.
The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.
Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.
No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.
If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.
The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.
A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.
Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.
The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
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.
Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.
Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.
The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.
Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.
