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IN PRESS UNIFORM 
 WITH THIS VOLUME 
 
 The Maxims of 
 
 William McKinley 
 
 The Maxims of 
 
 Grover Cleveland 
 
 The Maxims of 
 
 Abraham I^incoln 
 
 The Maxims of 
 
 Thomas Jefferson 
 
 The Maxims of 
 
 George Washington 
 
MAXIMS 
 
 OF 
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 "MAXIM — A condensed proposition of 
 important practical trnth.^^—IVebster's Un- 
 abridged Dictionary. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 THE MADISON BOOK CO. 
 1903 
 
THE LIBRARY OF 
 CONGRESS. 
 
 Two CopiM 
 
 Receive* 
 
 AUG 15 
 
 1903 
 
 V Cspyright 
 
 Entry 
 
 f^c3 
 
 XXfeNo 
 
 COPY 
 
 xT 
 
 Copyright 1903 
 By W. M. KANDY 
 
 e '."^ c. 
 
 w^ 
 
 % 
 
b^l 
 
 flDaxims 
 
 H We have a right to demand the best 
 
 effort from those who should be best able 
 
 to make that effort. 
 * * 
 
 ^ The college man acquires by virtue of 
 is education not special privileges, but 
 special duties, and this is as it should be. 
 Every man who has been able to get bet- 
 ter mental training than his fellows should 
 feci an always increasing burden of re- 
 sponsibility for his actions, and should 
 be ever ready to do more than even his 
 
 full duty by his state. 
 
 * * 
 
 H The squaring of one's deeds with one's 
 
 words is the quality above all others 
 
 which we should exact from public men. 
 
 9 
 
6 /IDaxtms 
 
 U It is as un-American to deride and at- 
 tack the man of means because he is well- 
 to-do or the man of letters because he 
 has a trained mind as it would be to at- 
 tack his poorer brother who has had no 
 chance to win the wealth or learning. 
 
 * * 
 
 H No other nation can harm us if only 
 
 we are true to ourselves. 
 
 * ♦ 
 
 H The foundation of our society rests 
 upon the man with the dinner pail. What- 
 ever is really for his welfare, for his per- 
 manent and ultimate welfare, is for the 
 
 welfare of the community. 
 
 * * 
 
 H The lives of truest heroism are those in 
 which there are no great deeds to look 
 back upon. It is the little things well 
 done that go to make up a successful 
 and truly good life. 
 
ITbeo^ore IRoosevelt 7 
 
 HThe two greatest of all Americans, 
 the two Americans who left the indelible 
 impress of their individuality upon the 
 history of the world for all time to come, 
 were Washington, who founded the re- 
 public, and Lincoln, who saved and per- 
 petuated it. 
 
 * ♦ 
 
 ^ When great nations fear to expand, 
 shrink from expansion, it is because their 
 greatness is coming to an end. Are we, 
 still in the prime of our lusty youth, still 
 at the beginning of our glorious man- 
 hood, to sit down among the outworn 
 people, to take our place with the weak 
 
 and craven? A thousand times no! 
 * * 
 
 U You cannot by law make a man pros- 
 perous. You can only give him the 
 chance to become prosperous by his own 
 exertions. 
 
8 /IDaxims 
 
 Tf In this life we get nothing save by ef- 
 fort. Freedom from effort in the pres- 
 ent merely means that there has been 
 stored up effort in the past. A man can 
 be freed from the necessity of work only 
 by the fact that he or his fathers before 
 him have worked to good purpose. If the 
 freedom thus purchased is used aright, 
 and the man still does actual work, though 
 of a different kind, whether as a writer 
 or a general, whether in the field of poli- 
 tics or in the field of exploration and ad- 
 venture, he shows he deserves his good 
 fortune. But if he treats this period of 
 freedom from the need of actual labor as 
 a period, not of preparation, but of mere 
 enjoyment, even though perhaps not of 
 vicious enjoyment, he shows that he is 
 simply a cumberer of the earth's surface, 
 and he surely unfits himself to hold his 
 
JLbcot^ovc 1Roo0ex>elt 9 
 
 own with his fellows if the need to do so 
 
 should again arise. *A mere life of ease 
 
 is not in the end a very satisfactory life, 
 
 and above all, it is a life which ultimately 
 
 unfits those who follow it for serious 
 
 work in the world. 
 
 * * 
 
 H Washington did his work not only be- 
 cause it was given him, but because he 
 possessed to a marked degree the quali- 
 ties that every one of us has in him if he 
 chooses to develop them; because his 
 name was a synonym for honesty, cour- 
 age, common sense — the three qualities 
 for the lack of which no brilliancy, no 
 genius can atone, whether in a man or in 
 
 a nation. 
 
 * * 
 
 H What every man needs is robust virtue, 
 that will enable him to go out into the 
 world and remain true to himself. 
 
10 jflDaxims 
 
 IF To flatter or to cringe to the powerful 
 are now vices in contradistinction to one 
 another; they are the same kind of vice 
 in different manifestations; the dema- 
 gogfue and the courtier. The demagogue 
 who for his own selfish purposes flatters 
 cne set of people and the courtier who 
 for his own selfish purposes flatters a 
 single individual are after all two people 
 who stand on the same level of baseness, 
 each according to his light striving to 
 flatter power as he fancies he sees it with- 
 out regard to whether he will do good 
 
 even to those he flatters. 
 
 * * 
 
 H A bad man of ability is worse than a 
 
 bad man of no ability. 
 * * 
 
 U The indispensable prerequisite of suc- 
 cess under our institutions is genuine- 
 ness in the spirit of brotherhood. 
 
Ubeo^ore IRoosevelt U 
 
 II Our system of §x>vermnent is the best 
 
 in the world for a people able to carry it 
 
 on. Only the highest type of people can 
 
 carry it on. 
 
 * * 
 
 H One of the most abhorrent traits of 
 character a man can possess, in my esti- 
 mation, is hypocrisy. We all have met 
 men who go about clothing themselves 
 in scriptural teachings, yet whose conduct 
 toward their fellowmen shows that they 
 do not live up to the teaching ''love thy 
 
 neighbor as thyself." 
 * * 
 
 TI I have known men who were good 
 Christians theoretically, yet they were not 
 even good companions for their wives. I 
 have also known women who went to 
 church regularly, but spent their time at 
 home nagging their husbands and chil- 
 dren. This is not true Christianity. 
 
12 /Iftaxims 
 
 H It is well enough to tell a man what 
 he ought to do, but this must be supple- 
 mented by some practical demonstration 
 of application. 
 
 U No one ought to submit to being im- 
 posed upon, but before you act always 
 stop to consider the rights of others be- 
 fore standing up for your own. 
 * * 
 
 H The only true way to. help a man is to 
 aid him in helping himself. All of us 
 stumble many times during a lifetime, 
 and the duty of a man to his neighbor 
 is to help him to his feet so he may help 
 
 himself. 
 
 * * 
 
 II The fellow who works for fee only and 
 does the least he can to get his money 
 will in the long run prove a dismal fail- 
 ure. 
 
t^beo^ore 1Roo0e\>elt 13 
 
 fl I have no patience with men who al- 
 ways are talking about their goodness 
 and virtue, yet who never show any 
 exterior signs of possessing either. I 
 always want to see a plant bear fruit. 
 
 If Life is often hard enough at best ; it is 
 sometimes quite as hard for the rich as 
 for the poor, and too often the good man, 
 the honest and patriotic citizen, suffers 
 many blows from fate, and sees some ras- 
 cals and some idlers prosper undeserved- 
 ly ; but the suresf way to increase his mis- 
 ery tenfold is for him to play intO' the 
 hands of the scoundrelly demagogues, to 
 abandon that stern morality without 
 which no man and no nation can ever 
 permanently succeed, and to seek a tem- 
 porary relief for his own real or imag- 
 inary sufferings by plunging others into 
 misery. 
 
14: /iDaxtms 
 
 H We have all seen the type of man who 
 is spoken of as his own worst enemy. I 
 have no patience with them. Often they 
 are a worse enemy to others. A manly 
 man — and that is what we all ought to 
 be — must have strength and power and 
 perseverance. The trials of life test the 
 stuff a man or woman is made of, and 
 the one who is strong, fearless and cour- 
 ageous to do right is the ideal. 
 
 If So far from being in any way a provo- 
 cation to war, an adequate and highly 
 trained navy is the best guaranty against 
 war, the cheapest and most effective 
 
 peace insurance. 
 * * 
 
 H If you rob a man of his self-respect, 
 take away his sturdy, self-reliant man- 
 hood, no good you can do will make 
 amends. 
 
Ubeobore 'KooBevelt 15 
 
 H In our army we cannot afford to have 
 rewards or duties distributed save on the 
 simple ground that those who by their 
 own merits are entitled to the rewards 
 get them, and that those who- are pecu- 
 liarly fit to do the duties are chosen to 
 
 perform them. 
 
 * * 
 
 ^ For many of us life is nothing but 
 very hard. Each one of us who does 
 anything is going to have hard stretches 
 in it; otherwise men would not do any- 
 thing. If a man does not meet with 
 difficulties, if he does not put himself in 
 a way where he has to overcome them, 
 he would not do anything that is worthy 
 of being done. 
 * * 
 
 H The people of the Americas can pros- 
 per best if left to work out their own 
 salvation in their own way. 
 
16 /iDaxtms 
 
 II Timid endurance of wrongdoing may 
 often be to commit one of the great- 
 est evils that one possibly can commit 
 against one's fellows. 
 
 H Help given in a spirit of arrogance 
 does not benefit any one. Help must 
 be given rationally with a feeling of 
 good will. 
 >K * 
 
 H In the long run the sole justification of 
 any type of government lies in its prov- 
 ing itself both honest and efhcient. 
 
 H Every man should strive to do justice 
 to himself, but in doing so he should not 
 forget the rights of his neighbor. He 
 should be sure that he is in the right and 
 then stand squarely in the path. If there 
 is any moving to be done, let the other 
 fellow do it. 
 
UbeoDote IRooeevelt 17 
 
 II The man who' does his ordinary work 
 well shows the stuff of which he is made. 
 I don't like to see a slack man in any 
 vocation. If he does the small things 
 that come his way in a loose, bad man- 
 ner you can't depend upon him in a 
 great crisis or in any sort of a spiritual 
 contest. It is the duty of all of us while 
 doing the work of the world to show 
 that we have not lost sight of spiritual 
 ends even in our material conquests. 
 
 H The men who demand the impossible 
 or the undesirable serve as the allies of 
 the forces with which they are nominally 
 at war, for they hamper those who would 
 endeavor to find out in rational fashion 
 what the wrongs really are and to what 
 extent and in what manner it is practi- 
 cable to apply remedies. 
 
18 rt^axim8 
 
 TI When all is said and done, the rule of 
 brotherhood remains as the indispens- 
 able prerequisite to success in the kind 
 of national life for which we strive. Each 
 man must work for himself, and unless 
 he so works no outside help can avail 
 him ; but each man must remember also 
 that he is indeed his brother's keeper, 
 and that, while no man who refuses to 
 walk can be carried with advantage to 
 himself or any one else, yet that each at 
 times stumbles or halts, that each at 
 times needs to have the helping hand 
 outstretched to him. To be permanently 
 effective aid must always take the form 
 of helping a man to help himself; and 
 we can all best help ourselves by joining 
 together in the work that is of common 
 interest to all. 
 
 H It is not enough to mean well. 
 
Ti;beo&orc iRooscvclt 19 
 
 IT American wage-workers work with 
 their heads as well as their hands. More- 
 over, they take a keen pride in what they 
 are doing, so that, independent of the 
 reward, they wish to turn out a perfect 
 job. This is the great secret of our suc- 
 cess in competition with the labor of 
 
 foreign countries. 
 ♦ * '- 
 
 tf The chief factor in the success of each 
 man — wage-worker, farmer and capital- 
 ist alike — must ever be the sum total of 
 his own individual qualities and abilities. 
 Second only to this comes the power 
 of acting in combination or association 
 with others. 
 
 1[ If a man is fearless, is honest, has con- 
 sideration for others, and if gifted with 
 the crowning grace of common sense, he 
 IS going to do fairly well. 
 
20 /II^axtms 
 
 H Our people are now successfully gov- 
 erning ourselves because for more than 
 a hundred years the}^ have been slowly 
 fitting themselves, sometimes conscious- 
 ly, sometimes unconsciously, toward this 
 end. 
 
 11 What has taken us thirty generations 
 to achieve we cannot expect to see 
 another race accomplish out of hand, 
 especially when large portions of that 
 race start very far behind the point 
 which our ancestors had reached even 
 thirty generations ago. 
 * * 
 
 11 There is nothing pecuHar in govern- 
 ment. Good government consists in 
 applying the old humdrum, everyday, 
 commonplace virtues which all of us 
 learn, but which all of us do not practice. 
 
Xi:beot)ote iRoosevelt 21 
 
 If We all of us tend to rise or fall togeth- 
 er. If any set of us goes down the whole 
 nation sags a little. If any of us raise 
 ourselves a little, then by just so much 
 the nation as a whole is raised. 
 
 He Hi 
 
 Tf In doing your work in the great world, 
 it is a safe plan to follow a rule I once 
 heard preached on the football field: 
 Don't flinch; don't fall; hit the line hard. 
 
 U When people have become very pros- 
 perous they tend to^ become sluggishly 
 indifferent to the continuation of the 
 policies that brought about their pros- 
 perity. At such times as these it is of 
 course a mere law of nature that" some 
 men prosper more than others, and too 
 often those who prosper less, in their 
 jealousy of their more fortunate brethren, 
 forget that all have prospered somewhat. 
 
22 /IDaxims 
 
 II We of America, we, the sons of a 
 nation yet in the pride of its lusty youth, 
 spurn the teachings of distrust, spurn the 
 creed of failure and despair. We know 
 that the future is ours if we have in us 
 the manhood to grasp it, and we enter 
 the new century girding our loins for the 
 contest before us, rejoicing in the strug- 
 gle, and resolute so to bear ourselves 
 that the nation's great future shall even 
 surpass her glorious past. 
 
 IF If you will study our past history as a 
 nation you will see we have made many 
 blunders and have been guilty of many 
 shortcomings, and yet have always in the 
 end come out victorious because we have 
 refused to be daunted by blunders and 
 defeats — have recognized them, but have 
 persevered in spite of them. 
 
XTbeo^ore IRoosevelt 23 
 
 II There are two kinds of greatness that 
 can be achieved. There is the greatness 
 that comes to the man who can do what 
 no one else can do. That is a mighty 
 rare kind, and of course it can only be 
 achieved by the man of special and un- 
 usual qualities. Then there is the other 
 kind that comes to the man who does 
 the things that every one could do but 
 that every one does not do. To do that, 
 you first of all have got to school your- 
 self to do the ordinary commonplace 
 
 things. 
 
 * * 
 
 H A man to be a good citizen must first 
 
 be a good bread winner, a good husband, 
 
 a good father. 
 
 * * 
 
 H The country districts are those in which 
 
 we are surest to find the old American 
 
 spirit. 
 
24 /iDaxtms 
 
 TI With the growth in wealth and pros- 
 perity has come an accentuation of dif- 
 ferences between man and man which do 
 harm in two ways; which do harm when 
 they make one man arrogant; which do 
 equal harm when they make another 
 man envious. 
 
 ]f Any really great nation must be pecu- 
 liarly sensitive to two things, — stain on 
 the national honor at home and disgrace 
 to the national arms abroad. Our honor 
 at home, our honor in domestic and in- 
 ternational affairs, is at all times in our 
 own keeping and depends simply upon 
 the national possession of an awakened 
 public conscience. But the only way to 
 make our honor, as affected, not by our 
 own deeds, but by the deeds of others, 
 is by readiness in advance. 
 
tlbeobore *KooBe\>elt 25 
 
 H On .the whole, our people earn more 
 and live better than ever before, and the 
 progress of which we are so proud could 
 not have taken place had it not been for 
 the great upbuilding of industrial cen- 
 ters, such as our commercial and manu- 
 facturing cities. But together with the 
 good there has come a measure of evil. 
 Life is not so simple as it was, and surely 
 both for the individual and the com- 
 munity the simple life is normally the 
 healthy life. There is not in the cities 
 the same sense of common underlying 
 brotherhood which there is still in coun- 
 try localities, and the lines of social 
 cleavage are far more clearly marked. 
 
 H We can accomplish by mutual self-help 
 much, and there yet remains an immense 
 amount to be done by individual self- 
 help. 
 
26 /B3axim6 
 
 II When the weather is good for crops it 
 is also good for weeds. Moreover, not 
 only do the wicked flourish when the 
 times are such that most men flourish, 
 but, what is worse, the spirit of envy and 
 jealousy and hatred springs up in the 
 breasts of those who, though they may 
 be doing fairly well themselves, yet see 
 others, who are no more deserving, do- 
 ing far better. 
 
 H Good laws can do something, but we 
 must never deceive ourselves into the 
 belief that the law will do more than let 
 the man, after a law has been put upon 
 the statute books, w^ork out his own sal- 
 vation. 
 
 * * 
 
 TI In the long run the only kind of 
 help that really avails is the help which 
 teaches a man to help himself. 
 
trbeo^ore IRoosevelt 27 
 
 TI I believe that this nation will rise level 
 to any great emergency that may meet 
 it, but it will only be because now, in our 
 ordinary work day life, in the times of 
 peace, in the times when no great crisis 
 is upon us, we school ourselves by con- 
 stant practice in the commonplace, every 
 day indispensable duties, so that when 
 the time arrives we shall shoiw that we 
 have learned aright the primary lessons 
 
 of good citizenship. 
 * * 
 
 ]i I think there is only one class of people 
 
 who deserve as well as the soldiers, and 
 
 those are they who teach the children of 
 
 the present how to be the masters of our 
 
 country in the future. 
 
 * * 
 
 H The forces which made these farm-bred 
 
 boys leaders of men are still at work in 
 
 our country districts. 
 
28 /IDaxims 
 
 H If, when people wax fat, they kick, as 
 they have been prone to do since the 
 days of Jeshurun, they will speedily de- 
 stroy their own prosperity. If they go 
 into wild speculation and lose their 
 heads, they have lost that which no leg- 
 islation can supply, and the business 
 world will suffer in consequence. If, in 
 a spirit of sullen envy, they insist upon 
 pulling down those who have profited 
 most by the years of fatness, they will 
 bury themselves in the crash of the com- 
 mon disaster. It is difficult to make our 
 material condition better by the best 
 laws, but it is easy enough by bad laws 
 to throw the whole nation into an abyss 
 of misery. 
 * * 
 
 ^ You can help a man successfully, but 
 you can't carry him successfully. 
 
xrbeot)ore IRoosevelt 29 
 
 H Doubtless on the average the most use- 
 ful man to his fellow citizens is apt to be 
 he to whom has been given what the 
 psalmist prayed for — neither poverty nor 
 riches — but the great captain of industry, 
 the man of wealth, who alone or in com- 
 bination with his fellows drives through- 
 out great business enterprises, is a factor 
 without which this country could not 
 possibly maintain its present industrial 
 position in the world. 
 
 H The good man who is ineffective is not 
 able to make his goodness of much ac- 
 count to the people as a whole. No mat- 
 ter how much a man hears the word, 
 small is the credit attached to him if he 
 fails tO' be a doer also. In serving the 
 Lord he must remember that he needs 
 to avoid sloth in his business as well as 
 to cultivate fervency of spirit. 
 
30 /IDaxims 
 
 ^ Every man of power by the fact of that 
 power is capable of doing damage to his 
 neighbors, but we cannot afford to dis- 
 courage the development of such men 
 merely because it is possible they may 
 use their power to wTong ends. If we 
 did so we should leave our history a 
 blank, for we should have no great 
 statesmen, soldiers, or merchants, no 
 great men of arts, of letters, or of 
 science. 
 
 11 A great fortune if not used aright 
 makes its possessor in a peculiar sense a 
 menace to the community as a whole, 
 just as a great intellect does if it is un- 
 accompanied by developed conscience, 
 by character. But obviously this no 
 more affords grounds for condemning 
 wealth than it does for condemning in- 
 tellect. 
 
ti:bcot)ore IRoosevelt 31 
 
 U Our republic has as one of its corner 
 stones the education of the citizen. Edu- 
 cation is not all. The educated scamp 
 is a scamp still and all the more dan- 
 gerous to the community, but admitting 
 that, it is always true that, while educa- 
 tion is not all, without it we would not 
 amount to much. We must have a high 
 degree of education in the average citi- 
 zen or we are not going to be able to 
 solve aright the great problems present- 
 ed to us. 
 
 ^"My plea to you, fellow Americans, is 
 to remember that in this country no law, 
 no leadership can possibly take the place 
 of the exercise by the average citizen of 
 the fundamental virtues of good citizen- 
 ship, the exercise of the fundamental 
 qualities of honesty, courage, and com- 
 mon sense. 
 
32 /IDaxtms 
 
 H Let no father and mother lay to their 
 souls the flattering notion that they can 
 shirk their duties and think that those 
 duties were performed by the school 
 teacher, no matter- how good that teach- 
 er is. All of you know an occasional 
 father and mother who does just that 
 thing. We have to have the education; 
 we must have the home bringing up; w^e 
 must have the trained mind; and then 
 we must have, in addition, training for 
 what is more than mind — training for 
 character. 
 
 U In the long run, it is more comfortable 
 to make promises that can be kept, in- 
 stead of making promises which are sure 
 of an immense reception when made, 
 but which entail intolera1)le humiliation 
 when it is attempted to carry them out. 
 
XTbeo^ore IRoosevelt 33 
 
 II It always happens that a good year for 
 crops is a good year for weeds. When 
 we have prosperity some people for 
 whom we do not much care prosper 
 more than others, but it is a great deal 
 better that some people should prosper 
 too much than that none of us should 
 prosper at all. The gospel of intelhgent 
 hard work is the gospel that pays, and 
 of all the gospel the one that pays the 
 least is that of envy and rancor, whether 
 it is a gospel preached to inflame class 
 against class or section against section. 
 
 H If you give a man the best weapon in 
 the world and he himself is a pretty poor 
 sort of a creature, he will be beaten by a 
 good man with a club. 
 
 H It is almost as irritating to be patron- 
 ized as to be wronged. 
 
34 /IDaxims 
 
 11 It does not make any difference how 
 brave a man is, or how honest, if he is 
 born fooHsh scant will be the good you 
 get out of him. 
 
 U The crimes of craft and the crimes of 
 violence both are equally dangerous. 
 And we must remember after all that 
 those who come from the set where one 
 kind of crime is dangerous are apt to 
 denounce the other type of crime. Both 
 must be put down. The man who com- 
 mits violence — above all, the body of 
 men who commit violence, commit an 
 outrage not merely against their fellow 
 Americans but against the whole body 
 politic to which they belong. 
 
 HThe man who lives simply, and justly, 
 and honorably, whether rich or poor, is 
 a good citizen, 
 
Ubeo^ore IRoosevelt 35 
 
 TI The man who tells you that he had a 
 patent device by which, in sixty days, he 
 would solve the whole question of floods 
 along the great rivers would not only be 
 a wise man but he would be a perfect 
 miracle of wisdom compared to the man 
 who tells you that by another patent 
 remedy he can bring the millennium in 
 our industrial and social affairs. 
 
 H The things that divide one American 
 from his fellow Americans are small com- 
 pared to the things that unite them. A 
 difference of section, a difference of party 
 is of no concern if we can develop decent 
 citizenship in this country, and to do that 
 we need as the foundation, but only as 
 the foundation, industrial prosperity. 
 That which brings it to one part of the 
 country will bring it to all. 
 
36 /IDaxims 
 
 H Every people that has self-government 
 must bev/are of the fossilization of mind 
 which refuses to allow of any change as 
 conditions change. 
 
 H To bear the nanie of American is to 
 bear the most honorable of titles, and 
 whoever does not so believe has no busi- 
 ness to bear the name at all; and if he 
 comes from Europe, the sooner he gets 
 back the better. 
 
 H It is fooUsh to pride ourselves on our 
 marvelous progress and prosperity upon 
 our commanding position in the inter- 
 national world, and at the same time 
 have nothing but denunciation for the 
 men to whose commanding business 
 ability v/e in part owe this very progress 
 and prosperity, this commianding posi- 
 tion. 
 
'Q:beot)ore 1Roosex>elt 37 
 
 If I despise the man who will not work. 
 He is not worth envying, no matter at 
 Vv^hich end of the social scale he is. The 
 man whO' cannot pull his own weight, 
 that man is not any good in our public 
 life. Now we have got to do it in widely 
 different ways; each man has got to at 
 least pull his own weight, and if he is 
 worth his salt he will pull a little more. 
 
 T[ It is not a kindness to bring up a child 
 in the belief that it can get through life 
 by shirking the difficulties. The child 
 who is going to be worth its salt must be 
 taught to face difficulties and overcome 
 them. 
 
 H We need for our citizenship character; 
 character into which shall enter honesty, 
 courage, and the saving grace of com- 
 raon sense. 
 
38 /IDaxims 
 
 H It is a good thing that there should be 
 a large body of our fellow citizens — ^that 
 there should be a profession whose mem- 
 bers must, year in and year out, display 
 those old, old qualities of courage, dar- 
 ing, resolution, unflinching willingness to 
 meet danger at need. I hope to see all 
 our people develop the softer, gentler 
 virtues to an ever-increasing degree, but 
 I hope never to see them lose the sterner 
 virtues that make men men. I feel that 
 the profession of railroading is a fine 
 anti-scorbutic — that it does away with 
 the tendency toward softness. A man is 
 not going to be a fireman or an engineer, 
 or serve well in any other capacity on a 
 railroad long, if, to speak technically, he 
 has a ''streak of yellow" in him. You are 
 going to find it out, and he is going to 
 be painfully conscious of it soon. It is 
 
XI:beo^otc iRoosevelt 39 
 
 a fine thing for our people that we should 
 have those qualities in evidence before 
 us in the life work of a big group of our 
 citizens. 
 * * 
 
 H I pity the creature who does not work, 
 at whichever end of the social scale he 
 may regard himself as being. The law 
 of worthy work well done is the law of 
 successful American Hfe. I believe in 
 play, too — play, and play hard while you 
 play; but don't make the mistake of 
 thinking that that is the main thing. The 
 work is what counts, and if a man does 
 his work well, and it is worth doing, then 
 it matters little in which line that work 
 is done — the man is a good American 
 citizen. If he does his work in slipshod 
 fashion, then, no matter what kind of 
 "V^ork it is, he is a poor American citizen. 
 
40 flDaxlms 
 
 H Honesty and courage are not enough. 
 You must have common sense. 
 
 ^ I firmly believe in my countrymen, and, 
 therefore, I believe that the chief thing 
 necessary in order that they shall work 
 together is that they shall know one an- 
 other; that the northerner shall know 
 the southerner and the man of one occu- 
 pation know the man of another occupa- 
 tion; the man who works in one walk of 
 life. knows the man who works in another 
 walk of Hfe, so that we may realize that 
 the things that divide us are superficial, 
 are unimportant, and that we, are and 
 must ever be knit together into one in- 
 dissoluble mass by our American man- 
 hood. 
 
 II I believe in preaching, but I believe in 
 practice a good deal more. 
 
tTbeoDore IRoosevelt 4i 
 
 Tf Let us face the fact that there are evils. 
 It is foolish to blink at those evils. Let 
 us set ourselves, but temperately and 
 with sanity, to strive to find out what 
 the evils are and to remedy them. If any 
 man tells you that he can advance a 
 specific by which all the evils of the body 
 politic Vv^ill be made to disappear, distrust 
 him, for if he is honest he knows not 
 what he says. 
 
 T[ The wicked who prosper are never a 
 
 pleasant sight. 
 * * 
 
 H 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. 
 
42 /IDaxtms 
 
 H I do not give the snap of my finger 
 for a very good man who possesses that 
 peculiar kind of goodness that benefits 
 only himself, in his own home. I think 
 we all understand more and more that 
 the virtue that is worth having is the 
 virtue that can sustain the rough shock 
 of actual living; the virtue that can 
 achieve practical results, that finds ex- 
 pression in actual Hfe. There may be a 
 more objectionable class in the commu- 
 nity than the timid good, but I do not 
 
 know it. 
 
 * * 
 
 ^ In this life we get nothing save by 
 effort. Freedom from elYort in the pres- 
 ent merely means that there has been 
 stored up effort in the past. A man can 
 be freed from the necessity of work only 
 by the fact that he or his fathers before 
 him have worked to good purpose. 
 
UbeoOore IRoosevclt 43 
 
 U All of us know people who can be just, 
 but who are just in such ways as almost 
 
 to make us wish they were unjust. 
 
 * * 
 
 U Perhaps we must always advance a lit- 
 tle by zig-zags; only we must always 
 advance; and the zig-zags should go to- 
 ward the right goal. 
 
 Tf There is not anything more soul-har- 
 rowing for a man in time of war, or for 
 a man engaged in a difidcult job in time 
 of peace, than to give an order and have 
 the one addressed say, ''What?" 
 
 * * 
 
 H The vice of envy is not only a danger- 
 ous but also a mean vice, for it is always 
 a confession of inferiority. It may pro- 
 voke conduct which will be fruitful of 
 wrong to others; and it must cause mis- 
 ery to the man who feels it. 
 
44 /iDaxtms 
 
 TI Let us ever most vividly remember the 
 
 falsity of the belief that any one of us is 
 
 to be permanently benefited by the hurt 
 
 of another. 
 
 * * 
 
 H We all look forward to the day when 
 there shall be a nearer approximation 
 than there has ever yet been to the 
 brotherhood of man and the peace of the 
 world. More and more we are learning 
 that to love one's country above all oth- 
 ers is in no way incompatible with re- 
 specting and wishing well to all others, 
 and that, as between man and man, so 
 between nation and nation, there should 
 live the great law- of right. 
 
 H The poorest motto upon which an 
 American can act is the motto of "some 
 men down," and the safest to follow is 
 that of "all men up." 
 
'^:beo^ore tRooscvclt 45 
 
 U The true welfare of the nation is indis- 
 solubly bound up with the welfare of the 
 farmer and the wage-worker; of the man 
 who tills the soil, and of the mechanic, 
 the handicraftsman, the laborer. 
 
 H In our eager, restless life of effort, but 
 little can be done by, that cloistered vir- 
 tue of which Milton spoke with such fine 
 contempt. We need the rough, strong 
 qualities that make a man fit to play his 
 part well among men. Yet we need to 
 remember even more that no ability, no 
 strength and force, no power of intellect 
 or power of wealth shall avail us if we 
 
 have not the root of right living in us. 
 
 * * 
 
 H You want to hitch your wagon to a 
 star; but always to remember your limi- 
 tations. Strive upward but realize that 
 your feet must touch the ground. 
 
46 /IDaxlms 
 
 H Injudicious and ill-considered benevo- 
 lence usually in the long run defeats its 
 own ends. To discourage industry and 
 thrift ultimately amounts to putting a 
 premium on poverty and shiftlessness. 
 
 II If you get together and ask for reform 
 as if it was a concrete substance like 
 cake, you are not going to get it. If 
 you think you have performed your duty 
 by coming together once in a public hall 
 about three weeks before election and 
 advocating something that you know 
 perfectly well it is impossible to get, you 
 
 are going to be fooled. 
 
 * * 
 
 II In this government it is not the public 
 officials that really govern, it is the 
 people themselves. It is the people who 
 must make their ideals take tangible 
 shape. 
 
Ubeo^ore IRoosevelt 47 
 
 H One of the things that it always grieves 
 me most to hear from the Hps of any 
 American is that deification of what we 
 call smartness, the deification of cun- 
 ning and craft which has been divorced 
 from scruple. The man who is successful 
 in politics at the cost of abandoning the 
 very principles which we hold dear — that 
 man does not merely damage that he has 
 done by his own career, which may be 
 but trifling; he does infinitely more. He 
 Iqwers the standards of thousands of 
 young men, of tens of thousands who' 
 are not able to see clearly, and who are 
 blinded by the fact that he has succeeded 
 to the further fact that his success was 
 not worth having from any true stand- 
 point. 
 
 * * 
 
 H It is hard to fail; but it is worse never 
 to have tried to succeed. 
 
48 /IDaxims 
 
 1[ You can't govern yourselves by sitting 
 in your studies and thinking how good 
 you are. YouVe got to fight all you 
 know how, and you'll find a lot of able 
 men willing to fight you. Sometimes 
 one of these people, who feel that they 
 should do something to raise the coun- 
 try's political standard, goes to a primary 
 and finds a raft of men who have been to 
 many primaries. He discovers that he 
 counts for nothing. Then, if he is of the 
 type of men unfit for self-government he 
 says politics are low, and goes home. If 
 he is worth his salt he goes again, loses; 
 goes again, maybe wins; and finally finds 
 that he counts. 
 
 ^ No nation has a right to undertake a 
 big task unless it is prepared to do it in 
 masterful and effective style. 
 
Ubeo^ote IRooscvelt 49 
 
 H In the sweat of our brows do we eat 
 bread, and though the sweat is bitter at 
 times, yet in the long run it is far more 
 bitter to eat of the bread that is un- 
 earned, unwon, undeserved. 
 
 * * 
 
 H The man who by swindling or wrong- 
 doing acquires great wealth for himself 
 at the expense of his fellow, stands as 
 low morally as any predatory mediaeval 
 nobleman, and is a more dangerous 
 member of society. 
 
 TI No country can long endure if its 
 foundations are not laid deep in the 
 material prosperity which comes from 
 thrift, from business energy and enter- 
 prise, from hard, unsparing effort in the 
 fields of industrial activity; but neither 
 was any nation ever yet truly great if it 
 relied upon material prosperity alpn^, 
 
50 /IDaxims 
 
 H The first time I ever labored alongside 
 and g-ot thrown into intimate compan- 
 ionship with men who wxre mighty men 
 of their land, was in the cattle country 
 of the Northwest. I soon grew to have 
 an immense liking and respect for my 
 associates; and as I knew them, and did 
 not know similar workers in other parts 
 of the country, it seemed to me then the 
 ranch owner was a great deal better than 
 any Eastern business man, and that the 
 cow puncher stood on a corresponding 
 altitude compared to any of his brethren 
 in the East. Well, after a little while I 
 got thrown into close relations with the 
 farmers, and it did not take long before 
 I moved them up along side of my be- 
 loved cowmen, and made up my mind 
 that they really formed the backbone of 
 the land. Then, because of circum- 
 
Ubeo&ore IRoosevelt 51 
 
 stances, I was thrown into intimate con- 
 tact with railroad men; and I gradually 
 came to the conclusion that these rail- 
 road men were about the finest citizens 
 there were anywhere around. Then, in 
 the course of some official work, I was 
 thrown into close contact with a number 
 of the carpenters, blacksmiths and men 
 in the building trades^ — that is, skilled 
 mechanics of high order — and it was not 
 long before I had them on the same ped- 
 estal with the others. By that time it 
 began to dawn on me that the difference 
 was not in the men but in my own point 
 of view, and that if any man is thrown 
 into close contact with any large body 
 of our fellow-citizens, it is apt to be the 
 man's own fault if he does not grow to 
 feel for them a very hearty regard and, 
 moreover, grow to understand that on 
 
52 /IDaxtms 
 
 the great questions that lie at the root of 
 
 human well-being, he and they feel alike. 
 
 * * 
 
 ^ When any sport is carried on primarily 
 for money — that is, as a business — it 
 is in danger of losing much, that is valu- 
 able, and of acquiring some exceedingly 
 
 undesirable characteristics. 
 
 * * 
 
 If It is not an easy thing, when you come 
 down to the practical reality, to work for 
 the best; it is a good deal easier to sit at 
 home in one's parlor and decide what 
 the best is, than to get out in the field 
 and try to win it. When one is in. the 
 midst of the strife, with the dust and the 
 blood, and the rough handling, and is 
 receiving blows, and if he is worth any- 
 thing, is returning them, it is difficult 
 always to see perfectly straight in the 
 direction the right lies. 
 
Xi:beo&ote iRoosevclt 53 
 
 If Rough vigorous pastimes are excellent 
 things for the nation; for they promote 
 manliness, being good in their effects 
 not merely on the body, but upon the 
 character, which is far more important 
 than the body. It is an admirable thing 
 for any boy or young man whose work 
 is of a sedentary character to take part 
 in vigorous play, so long as it is not 
 carried to excess, or allowed to interfere 
 with his work. Every exercise that 
 tends to develop bodily vigor, daring, 
 endurance, resolution and self-command 
 should be encouraged. Boxing is a 
 fine sport; but this affords no justifica- 
 tion of prize fighting, any more than 
 the fact that a cross country run or a 
 ride on a wheel is healthy justifies such 
 a demoraHzing exhibition as a six day's 
 race, 
 
54 /iDaxtms 
 
 H It is almost equally dangerous either 
 tO' blink at evils and refuse to acknowl- 
 edge their existence, or to strike at them 
 in a spirit of ignorant revenge, thereby 
 doing far more harm than is remedied. 
 The need can be met only by careful 
 study of conditions, and by action which, 
 while taken boldly and without hesita- 
 tion, is neither harmless or reckless. It 
 is well to remember, on the one hand, 
 that the adoption of what is reasonable 
 in the demands of reformers is the surest 
 way to prevent the adoption of what 
 is unreasonable; and, on the other hand, 
 that many of the worst and most danger- 
 ous laws which have been put upon 
 statute books have been put there by 
 zealous reformers with excellent inten- 
 tions. 
 
 * * 
 
Ubeo&orc IRoosevelt 55 
 
 HJust so long as in the business world 
 unscrupulous cunning is allowed the free 
 rein which, thanks to the growth of hu- 
 manity during the past centuries, we 
 now deny to unscrupulous physical force, 
 then just so long there will be a field 
 for the best effort of every honest social 
 and civic reformer who is capable of 
 feeling an impulse of generous indigna- 
 tion, and who is far sighted enough to 
 appreciate when the unscrupulous indi- 
 vidual works by himself. 
 * * 
 
 TIThe great man is always the man of 
 mighty effort, and usually the man whom 
 grinding need has trained to mighty 
 effort. 
 
 11 Don't let practical politics mean foul 
 politics. 
 
56 /iDaxtms 
 
 TI Rest and peace are good things, are 
 
 great blessings, but only if they come 
 
 honorably; and it is those who fearlessly 
 
 turned away from them when they have 
 
 not been earned, who in the long run 
 
 deserve the best of their country. 
 * * 
 
 H Hardy outdoor sports, like hunting, 
 are in themselves of no small value to 
 the national character and should be en- 
 couraged in every way. Men who go 
 into the wilderness, indeed men who take 
 part in any field sports with horse or 
 rifle, receive a benefit which can hardly 
 be given by even the most vigorous 
 
 athletic games. 
 
 * * 
 
 1[ It is the law of success to dare, to do 
 
 and to endure. It is only by so acting 
 
 that success can come, that you will be 
 
 successful 
 
tI:beo^ore IRoosevelt 57 
 
 H From an armor plant to a street rail- 
 way, no work which is really beneficial 
 to the public can be performed to the 
 best advantage of the public save by 
 men of such business capacity that they 
 will not do the work unless they them- 
 selves receive ample reward for doing 
 
 it. 
 * * 
 
 H There is no need of envying the idle. 
 Ordinarily, we can afford to treat them 
 with impatient contempt; for when they 
 fail to do their duty, they fail to get from 
 life the highest and keenest pleasures 
 that life can give. 
 
 ^If ever Anarchy is triumphant, its tri- 
 umph will last for but one red moment, 
 to be succeeded for ages by the gloomy 
 night of despotism. 
 
58 /iDaxims 
 
 11 We hold work not as a curse but as a 
 blessing, and we regard the idler with 
 scornful pity. It would be in the highest 
 degree undesirable that we should all 
 work in the same way or at the same 
 things, and for the sake of the real great- 
 ness of the nation we should in the fullest 
 and most cordial way recognize the fact 
 that some of the most needed work 
 must, from its very nature, be unremun- 
 erative in a material sense. Each man 
 must choose so far as the conditions 
 allow him the path to which he is bidden 
 by his own peculiar powers and inclina- 
 tions. But if he is a man he must in 
 some way or shape do a man's work. 
 If, after making all the effort that 
 his strength of body and of mind 
 permits, he yet honorably fails, why, he 
 is still entitled to a certain share of re- 
 
Ubeobore H^oosepelt 59 
 
 spect because he has made the effort. But 
 if he does not make the effort, or if he 
 makes it half-heartedly and recoils from 
 the labor, the risk, or the irksome 
 monotony of his task, why, he has for- 
 feited all right to our respect, and has 
 shown himself a mere cumberer on the 
 earth. 
 
 11 When a man is well off, he is very apt 
 to be willing to take chances. When 
 he is badly off, then he is more careful. 
 
 HAll that laws can do is this: They 
 can be so shaped, framed and admin- 
 istered as to give the average man the 
 best possible chance to use aright his 
 own skill, thrift, courage, resolution and 
 business capacity. This is what can be 
 done, and this is what has been done. 
 
60 /IDaxims 
 
 Tl Anarchy is no more an expression of 
 "social discontent" than picking pockets 
 or wife beating. 
 * * 
 
 TIAs a rule the man who is the loudest 
 denouncer of corporate wealth — spelling 
 "corporate" with a large "C" and 
 "wealth" with a large "W" — and who 
 is most inflammable in his insistence, in 
 public, that he will not permit the 
 liberties of the country to be subverted 
 by the men of means, is himself the very 
 man for whom you want to look out 
 most sharply when there comes up some- 
 thing which some corrupt corporation 
 does really want, and about which there 
 is not any great popular excitement at 
 
 the moment. 
 
 * * 
 
 IfThe only homage that counts is the 
 
 homage of deeds. 
 
tl;beo^ore IRoosevelt ci 
 
 II In the great part which hereafter, 
 whether we will or not, we must play 
 in the world at large, let us see to it 
 that we neither do wrong nor shirk from 
 doing right because the right is difficult; 
 that on the one hand we inflict no in- 
 jury, and that on the other we have a 
 due regard for the honor and the interest 
 of our mighty nation; and that we keep 
 unsullied the renown of the flag which 
 beyond all others of the present time or 
 of the ages of the past stands for con- 
 fident faith in the future welfare and 
 greatness of mankind. 
 * * 
 
 H We are in honor bound each to strive 
 according to his or her strength to bring 
 ever nearer the day when justice and 
 wisdom shall obtain in public life as in 
 private life. 
 
62 /iDaxtms 
 
 Tf Every wealthy corporation that per- 
 petrates or is allowed to perpetrate a 
 wrong helps to produce or inflame a 
 condition of angry excitement against all 
 corporations, which in its turn may in 
 the end harm alike the honest and dis- 
 honest agents of public service, and 
 thereby do far-reaching damage to the 
 whole body politic. 
 ^ * 
 
 tfAny rational attempt to prevent or 
 counteract the evils, by legislation or 
 otherwise, is deserving of hearty sup- 
 port; but it can not be too deeply im- 
 pressed upon us that such attempt can 
 result in permanent good only in pro- 
 portion as they are made in a sane and 
 wholesome spirit, as far removed as pos- 
 sible from what is. hysterical or revolu- 
 tionary. 
 
XLbcoboxc 1Roo6e\>elt 63 
 
 H Our country calls not for the life of 
 ease, but for the life of strenuous en- 
 deavor. Let us therefore boldly face the 
 life O'f strife, resolute to do our duty well 
 and manfully; resolute to uphold right- 
 eousness by deed and by word; resolute 
 to be both honest and brave, to serve 
 
 high ideals, yet to use practical methods. 
 
 * * 
 
 ^ A law must not only be correct in the 
 abstract. It must work well in the con- 
 crete. 
 * * 
 
 tl It is infinitely better when needed so- 
 cial and civic changes can be brought 
 about as the result of natural and healthy 
 growth than when they come with the 
 violent dislocation and widespread 
 wreck and damage inevitably attendant 
 upon any movement which is revolu- 
 tionary in its nature. 
 
64 /lDaxtm6 
 
 H Though conditions of life have grown 
 so puzzling in their complexity, though 
 the changes have been so vast, yet we 
 may remain absolutely sure of one thing; 
 that now, as ever in the past, and as it 
 ever will be in the future, there can be 
 no substitute for the elemental virtues, 
 for the elemental qualities to which we 
 allude when, we speak of a man as not 
 only a good man, but as emphatically 
 a man. We can build up the standard 
 of individual citizenship and individual 
 well being, we can raise the national 
 standard and make it what it can and 
 shall be made, only by each of us stead- 
 fastly keeping in mind that there can be 
 no- substitute for the world-old, hum- 
 drum, commonplace qualitites of truth, 
 justice and courage, thrift, industry, com- 
 mon sense and genuine sympathy with 
 and fellow feeling for others. 
 
XTbeobore IRoosevelt 65 
 
 H Because we set our own household in 
 order, we are not thereby excused from 
 playing" our part in the great affairs of 
 the world. A man's first duty is to 
 his home, but he is not thereby excused 
 from doing his duty to the State; for 
 if he fails in this second duty it is under 
 the penalty of ceasing to be a free man. 
 
 H This country can not afiford to have 
 its sons less than men; but neither can 
 it afiford to have them other than good 
 men. If courage and strength and in- 
 tellect are unaccompanied by the moral 
 purpose, the moral sense, they become 
 merely forms of expression for unscrupu- 
 lous force and unscrupulous cunning. If 
 the strong man has not in him the lift 
 toward lofty things his strength makes 
 him only a curse toi himself and to his 
 neighbor. 
 
ee /iDaxtms 
 
 H Probably the large majority of the 
 fortunes that now exist in this country 
 have been amassed, not by injuring man- 
 kind, but as an incident to the con- 
 ferring of great benefits on the 
 community, — whatever the conscious 
 purpose of those amassing them may 
 have been. The occasional wrongs com- 
 mitted or injuries endured are o-n the 
 whole far outweighed by the mass of 
 good which has resulted. The true^ 
 questions to be asked are: Has any 
 given individual been injured by the ac- 
 quisition of wealth by any man? Were 
 the rights of that individual, if they have 
 been violated, insufficiently protected by 
 law? If so, these rights, and all similar 
 rights, ought to be guaranteed by ad- 
 ditional legislation. The point to be 
 aimed at is the protection of the indi- 
 
 LcfC. 
 
II:beo^ore IRooserelt 67 
 
 vidual against wrong, not the attempt 
 to limit and hamper the acquisition and 
 
 output of wealth. 
 
 * * 
 
 Tf For almost every gain there is a pen- 
 alty. 
 
 * * 
 
 If To be a good husband or good wife, 
 a good neighbor and friend, to be hard- 
 working and upright in business and 
 social relations, to bring up many 
 healthy children — to be and to do all 
 this is to lay the foundations of good 
 
 citizenship as they must be laid. 
 
 * * 
 
 TI In the abounding energy and intensity 
 of existence in our mighty democratic 
 republic there is small space indeed for 
 the idler, for the luxury-loving man who 
 prizes ease more than hard, triumph- 
 crowned effort. 
 
68 /IDaxims 
 
 H Poor work is always dear, whether 
 poorly paid or not, and good work is 
 always well worth having. 
 
 HThere is grave danger in attempting to 
 establish invariable rules. 
 
 U There is no use whatever in seeking to 
 apply a remedy blindly. 
 
 U Lip-loyalty by itself, avails very little, 
 whether it is expressed concerning a 
 nation or an ideal. 
 
 H We cannot retain the full measure of 
 
 our self-respect if we cannot retain pride 
 
 in our citizenship. 
 
 * * 
 
 HWoe to all of us if ever as a people 
 
 we grow to condone evil because it is 
 
 successful. 
 
UbeoDore IRoosevelt 69 
 
 IF It is not given to us all to succeed, 
 but it is given to us all to strive man- 
 fully to deserve success. 
 * * 
 

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