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It is a great mistake to think that the extremist is a better man than the moderate. Usually the difference is not that he is morally stronger, but that he is intellectually weaker. He is not more virtuous. He is simply more foolish.

Theodore Roosevelt

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Theodore Roosevelt
Age: 60 †
Born: 1858
Born: October 27
Died: 1919
Died: January 6
26Th U.S. President
Autobiographer
Conservationist
Diarist
Essayist
Explorer
Historian
Naturalist
Ornithologist
Politician
Rancher
Teddy
Teddy Roosevelt
Theodore Teddy Roosevelt
T. Roosevelt
President Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Jr.
Thinking
Difference
Extremist
Differences
Intellectually
Simply
Moderates
Mistake
Morally
Better
Virtuous
Great
Foolish
Men
Stronger
Weaker
Think
Usually
Moderate

More quotes by Theodore Roosevelt

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Every man, who parrots the cry of ‘stand by the President’ without adding the proviso ‘so far as he serves the Republic’ takes an attitude as essentially unmanly as that of any Stuart royalist who championed the doctrine that the King could do no wrong. No self-respecting and intelligent free man could take such an attitude.
Theodore Roosevelt
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Laws are essential emanations from the self-poised character of God they radiate from the sun to the circling edge of creation. Verily, the mighty Lawgiver hath subjected himself unto laws.
Theodore Roosevelt
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Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
Theodore Roosevelt
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Alike for the nation and the individual, the one indispensable requisite is character.
Theodore Roosevelt
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I have no business to feel downcast or querulous merely because when so much as been given me I have not had even more.
Theodore Roosevelt
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The worst thing I can do is nothing.
Theodore Roosevelt
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There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children's children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred.
Theodore Roosevelt
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You cannot create prosperity by law. Sustained thrift, industry, application, intelligence, are the only things that ever do, or ever will, create prosperity. But you can very easily destroy prosperity by law.
Theodore Roosevelt
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Mother went off for three days to New York and Mame and Quentin took instant advantage of her absence to fall sick. Quentin's sickness was surely due to a riot in candy and ice-cream with chocolate sauce.
Theodore Roosevelt
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There can be no life without change, and to be afraid of what is different or unfamiliar is to be afraid of life.
Theodore Roosevelt
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There is but one answer to terrorism and it is best delivered with a Winchester rifle.
Theodore Roosevelt
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The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.
Theodore Roosevelt
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A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace.
Theodore Roosevelt
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Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.
Theodore Roosevelt
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Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them.... If they gradually grow to feel that the whole world is nothing but muck their power of usefulness is gone.
Theodore Roosevelt
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Much of the discussion about socialism and individualism is entirely pointless, because of failure to agree on terminology.
Theodore Roosevelt
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It is the people, and not the judges, who are entitled to say what their constitution means, for the constitution is theirs, it belongs to them and not to their servants in office—any other theory is incompatible with the foundation principles of our government.
Theodore Roosevelt
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Then get busy and find out how to do it.
Theodore Roosevelt
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Freemasonry teaches not merely temperance, fortitude, prudence, justice, brotherly love, relief, and truth, but liberty, equality, and fraternity, and it denounces ignorance, superstition, bigotry, lust tyranny and despotism.
Theodore Roosevelt
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I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
Theodore Roosevelt