“The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.”

 Sagamore Hill, New York, January 1, 1916

“I do not much admire the Senate, because it is such a helpless body when efficient work for good is to be done.  Two or three determined Senators seem able to hold up legislation, or at least good legislation, in an astonishing way.”

 Letter to Joseph Bucklin Bishop, March 23, 1905

“There must be the public opinion back of the laws or the laws themselves will be of no avail.”

 Washington, DC, December 3, 1907

“I advocate genuine popular rule in nation, in state, in city, in county, as offering the best possible means for eliminating special privilege alike in politics and in business, and for getting a genuine equality of opportunity for every man to show the stuff there is in him.”

 St. Louis, MO, March 28, 1912

“The men who have made our national greatness are those who faced danger and overcame it, who met difficulties and surmounted them, not those whose lines were cast in such pleasant places that toil and dread were ever far from them.”

 Galena, Illinois, June 17, 1912

“This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail. It is the crooked man who succeeds who is a threat to this country.”

Memphis, Tennessee, October 25, 1905

“Life is not easy, and least of all is it easy for either the man or the nation that aspires to do great deeds.”

 Speech in New York City, February 26, 1903

“I have been Vice President, and I know how hollow the honor is.”

Quoted by Lawrence F. Abbott in Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, 1919

“The greatest benefit to the people, I am convinced, is the enforcement of the laws, without fear or favor.”

New York City, October 25, 1895