The nation’s 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt is known for repeating the maxim “speak softly and carry a big stick” with regard to his diplomatic approach, but the former president’s famous words encompass everything from nature to politics. Here are 11 quotes about family and character from the former president,
from a compilation by the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University.
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• "For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison."
• "I am pretty happy, for I have come to the conclusion that I have got mighty nice children, all of them!"
• "The highest of all happiness is the happiness of wedded lovers, of husband and wife who remain lover and sweetheart."
• "A man must think well before he marries. He must be a tender and considerate husband and realize that there is no other human being to whom he owes so much of love and regard and consideration as he does to the woman who with pain bears and with labor rears the children that are his."
• "No man can be guaranteed success. Men who are not prepared for labor and effort and rough living, for persistence and self-denial, are out of place in a new country."
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• "Honesty, rigid honesty, is a root virtue; if not present, no other virtue can atone for its lack."
• "Unless the man is master of his soul all other kinds of mastery amount to little."
• "Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteousness by deed and by word; resolute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods."
• "The same qualities that make a decent boy make a decent man. They have different manifestations, but fundamentally they are the same. If a boy has not got pluck and honesty and commonsense he is a pretty poor creature; and he is a worse creature if he is a man and lacks any one of those three traits.”
• "I believe with all my heart that the better we learn to know one another the less chance there will be of ever any trouble coming between any of us.”
• "...as soon as a man ceases to improve, he goes backward."
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