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Effort
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There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Equality
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No man is above the law, and no man is below it.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Evil
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At sometime in our lives a devil dwells within us, causes heartbreaks, confusion and troubles, then dies.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Failure
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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.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Football
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I am delighted to have you play football. I believe in rough, manly sports. But I do not believe in them if they degenerate into the sole end of any one's existence. I don't want you to sacrifice standing well in your studies to any over-athleticism; and I need not tell you that character counts for a great deal more than either intellect or body in winning success in life. Athletic proficiency is a mighty good servant, and like so many other good servants, a mighty bad master.
http://www.barnard.edu/amstud/resources/strenuous/trletter.htm
-Theodore Roosevelt, from a letter to his oldest son, October 4, 1903
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Goals
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Far better it 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 gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt, speech before the Hamilton Club, Chicago, April 10, 1899
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Government
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The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the money touch, but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Heart
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I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Help
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There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Idealism
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Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Identity
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I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Immigration
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Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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I am among those Americans whose ancestors include men and women from many different European countries. The proportion of Americans of this type will steadily increase. I do not believe in hyphenated Americans. I do not believe in German-Americans or Irish-Americans; and I believe just as little in English-Americans. I do not approve of American citizens of German descent forming organizations to force the United States into practical alliance with Germany because their ancestors came from Germany. Just as little do I believe in American citizens of English descent forming leagues to force the United States into an alliance with England because their ancestors came from England.
-Theodore Roosevelt, "Metropolitan", October, 1915
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Labor
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It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Law
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It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all. When the sturdy Roman plebeian, who lived by his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows formed in war the terrible Roman legion, had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and who directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the republic was at hand, and nothing could save it. The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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A man who never graduated from school might steal from a freight car. But a man who attends college and graduates as a lawyer might steal the whole railroad.
-Theodore Roosevelt, (attempting to persuade his son to become a lawyer)
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Leadership
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People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Loyalty
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It is better to be faithful than famous.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Media
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The men with the muck-rake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Military, the
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I want to see you shoot the way you shout.
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Mind, the
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All the resources we need are in the mind
-Theodore Roosevelt
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Books by and about Theodore Roosevelt