Roosevelt Quotes

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.

A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.

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

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Well-behaved women seldom make history.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.

Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart

But until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise.

No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.

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

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.

It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.

Believe you can and you're halfway there.

People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care

You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude

When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.

The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.

If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault.

With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.

Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.

Happiness is not a goal...it's a by-product of a life well lived.

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.

Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.

To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

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.

You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give.

Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.

What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail?

If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody come sit next to me.

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

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

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

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.

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

Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don't have the strength.

Once I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: "No good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.

Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.

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

Friendship with oneself is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes.

I am a part of everything that I have read.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.

I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.

No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care

No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

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 neither victory nor defeat.

The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first and love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.

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.

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

Work is always an antidote to depression.

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.

Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.

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.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.

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

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

One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.

A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.

I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.

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

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

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do ...

Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual; you have an obligation to be one. You cannot make any useful contribution in life unless you do this.

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.

Light a candle instead of cursing the darkness.

People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.

It's your life-but only if you make it so.

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

The bible says no man can take your joy. That means no person can make you live with a negative attitude. No circumstance, no adversity can force you to live in despair. As Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of wheelchair-bound President Franklin D. Roosevelt, often said, ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

Do something that scares you everyday.

A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.

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

If you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.

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

Books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory... In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man's freedom.

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility

Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat down the Little Missouri River in pursuit of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized rowboat. After several days on the river, he caught up and got the draw on them with his trusty Winchester, at which point they surrendered. Then Roosevelt set off in a borrowed wagon to haul the thieves cross-country to justice. They headed across the snow-covered wastes of the Badlands to the railhead at Dickinson, and Roosevelt walked the whole way, the entire 40 miles. It was an astonishing feat, what might be called a defining moment in Roosevelt’s eventful life. But what makes it especially memorable is that during that time, he managed to read all of Anna Karenina. I often think of that when I hear people say they haven’t time to read.

Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don't be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren't paying any attention to you. It's your attention to yourself that is so stultifying. But you have to disregard yourself as completely as possible. If you fail the first time then you'll just have to try harder the second time. After all, there's no real reason why you should fail. Just stop thinking about yourself.

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 person's becoming in every facet 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... 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.